By Kevin Thompson, Senior Cloud Operations Manager at Sage Africa and Middle East
Chief Information Officers (CIOs) in South Africa’s manufacturing sector face a challenging operating environment with increasing competition, rand/dollar volatility, higher customer expectations, load shedding and shorter innovation cycles. Technology is essential to keep up with the pace of change, drive innovation and gain a competitive advantage.
Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and additive manufacturing can help your business become productive and efficient and offer customised products. One of the key areas to consider investing in is the Internet of Things (IoT), which adds connected intelligent sensors to the devices and equipment on your factory floor.
IoT uses the data collected by components within machines in your production line, to optimise manufacturing processes. It creates value through better quality and control, while algorithms applied to large amounts of historical and real-time sensor data can increase prediction accuracy and analysis. Rich data also supports better decision-making.
Real-time process visibility
Instead of just predicting how a product should be manufactured and the possible result, we’ve reached a stage where we can see how a product is being manufactured in real-time. This is creating an immediate role-appropriate operational view of the entire factory floor, including processes and equipment. Anyone with the correct permissions can see this anytime and anywhere, allowing them to control and improve the factory.
Today, IoT enables you to:
- Connect products with smart components that collect data, allowing real-time inventory checks.
- Track the journey of raw materials and products from one place to another, enabling full traceability across the supply chain.
- Optimise energy consumption, the use of space, and workforce productivity, helping drive out inefficiencies and reduce costs.
- Increase equipment efficiency and help move products along the production line, ensuring compliance with regulatory standards.
- Minimise waste by detecting flawed products quickly, supporting the circular economy and sustainability initiatives.
- Monitor product condition during transportation, receiving real-time notifications to avoid premature and expensive maintenance costs.
- Monitor machinery from production lines and vehicles for preventative and predictive maintenance,
- Track the history of a product in the event of a safety issue, supporting rapid and efficient product recalls when needed.
- Collect and collate data from multiple sources into a single hub to provide comprehensive visibility and aid decision-making.
Embedding IoT into the entire lifecycle
Next-generation IoT technology can be embedded into different parts of the manufacturing lifecycle, from product design and marketing to finance and the factory floor. You can even build this technology into your products. This enables you to transition from solely selling a product to a business to offering real-time services via the cloud.
An example is how car manufacturers could use sensors in their vehicles, which allows them to analyse performance, collect usage information, and even alert customers to potential maintenance issues. You can monitor and analyse products at a distance – creating happy customers by quickly reacting to any problems and building long-lasting and durable products, which can reduce waste.
To take advantage of next-generation technologies such as AI and IoT, leading manufacturers are moving from monolithic legacy business applications towards more flexible, modular cloud-based applications. Today’s cloud solutions offer seamless communication across supply chains and access to real-time data.
With a modern business solution in place, you’ll be better positioned to use data generated by millions of devices and users on the Internet to drive better strategic and operational decision-making. You can use this data to understand consumer behaviour, perform financial investigations, carry out predictive maintenance or drive sales optimisation.
To thrive, you must strive for operational efficiency, speed up time to market and reduce costs while increasing revenue growth and improving customer experience. IoT—built on top of a robust enterprise software backbone—supports these goals by allowing your business to get real-time visibility into the state of your assets, equipment, processes, and plant resources as well as build mass-produced yet individually configured products.
