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If your manufacturing isn’t smart, then you’re not doing it right. Smart Manufacturing means embracing new technologies to become more efficient, and the industrial sector is already reaping the benefits. PwC estimates that companies in the industrial sector could grow revenues by as much as $493 billion over the next five years as a result of Industry 4.0.
Like many manufacturing companies across the globe, Bizagi customer Geesinknorba has been striving to improve its production environment with automation and intelligent process technologies.
Working towards Industry 4.0, many organizations take a ‘Smart Factory’ approach. The innovative approach that Geesinknorba calls ‘Smart Units’ has flipped this around. They now better meet every customers’ individual needs by making each vehicle an intelligent ‘user’ that navigates the complex manufacturing process.
Industry 4.0 and its digital capabilities present the opportunity for customization, whether that be personalizing production, servicing or producer/consumer interaction, comments Energy Industry Review.
Geesinknorba deals with a broad product portfolio, 99% of which are highly customized to the needs of each customer. This dramatically increases the complexity of the organization’s manufacturing process.
“The opportunity we identified is to create a match between our customer needs and our product needs with an operating system that enables us to intelligently control the production,” explains David Arfmann, COO, Geesinknorba.
This is where Geesinknorba’s concept of Smart Units arose. The units act as the navigator through the production process. It can also start different production steps simultaneously, considering the supply side, the lead-time and capacity. With this all this information available, it will always make the best decision.
Being able to adjust operating systems to customer needs depends on the integration of technology. “In this aspect, the IoT serves as the binding interface between all these systems: cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, data communication, programmable logic controllers and many others,” says Energy Industry Review.
Smart Manufacturing relies on intelligent sensors and IoT to collect data and ensure that the factory runs to the best of its ability. “Sensors make it possible to monitor specific processes throughout the factory which increases awareness about what’s happening on multiple levels, reports Otto Motors.
“Sensing technology on SDVs (Self-Driving Vehicles) used for material handling improves efficiency and safety as a product is moved around the factory. These types of robotics have the ability to sense and avoid people, as well as unexpected obstructions in the course of doing its work. The ability to automatically avoid these common disruptions is a powerful advantage that keeps production running optimally.”
In the case of Geesinknorba, IoT is being used once the units have left the factory to help with maintenance. The trucks can flag when they need to come back to the factory for maintenance or should a fault occur. This will also allow the customers to make savings by using smart vehicles to increase the efficiency of their own day-to-day operations.
Geesinknorba are producing the most intelligent products on the market in an insightful and agile way, while being flexible to the changing needs of customers and delivering products faster.
So far, they have already achieved remarkable results. They have decreased the lead-time, increased the production efficiency by 45% and increased the production output by 40%. With a set of other measures, it took the team only 8 months to achieve these remarkable results.
If you’d like to find out more about Geesinknorba’s story and see their Smart Factory in action, watch the video below:
