"There has been a considerable amount of publicity about the advantages of cloud computing, and rightly so. It removes the need to have skilled people set up and run complex in-house computer networks and also takes away the need to invest in expensive equipment and continually reinvest to keep it up to date," said Rob Powell, Commercial Director, Lantek Systems UK, explaining how the future of Industry 4.0 will change how computer systems are structured.
Powell further noted that for software products, it makes updating them much simpler. Rather like the updates to a laptop and phone, it all happens automatically. In the past, engineers had to load new versions themselves, which inevitably led to a surge in support queries and downtime for the customer as misunderstandings and errors in the update process made it impossible to work.
Now, there is a move towards a hybrid approach that uses Edge technology, where some of the processes take place locally yet it still sends the processed data to the Cloud. One of the drivers for this change is the new possibilities created by communication protocols such as UMATI for machinery.
UMATI is a common communication protocol for transferring data that is being developed and rolled out for CNC machines to work with software that manages and implements processes such as MES. UMATI and other IoT systems can also connect any machine or piece of equipment in the factory via IIoT devices, which is where Edge technology becomes important. The main difference about this data is the volume being generated as it is automatically coming from IIoT devices on the machine rather than from human input. Trying to send all this to the Cloud with all the other data from MES, accounting, stock control, etc. will result in unacceptable lag in response times and overloaded bandwidth.
The objective of Edge technology is to process the data from these IIoT devices locally and then to send the aggregated results in batches up to the Cloud. There, it is combined with other Cloud data already being processed to produce useful information to optimize the operation of the factory.
The potential of being able to extract vast amounts of data from sensors has massive implications in the factory for improving efficiency, reliability, customer service and delivery and quality performance and hence profitability.
Authored by Rob Powell, Commercial Director, Lantek Systems UK
For more information contact:
Lantek Systems, Inc.
5412 Courseview Drive
Suite 205
Mason, OH 45040
877-805-1028
info.usa@lanteksms.com
www.lantek.com