Manufacturing

Manufacturing relates to the improvement or transformation of a product which offers additional value to a consumer. While often conducted on the factory floor, the manufacturing segment is beginning to undergo transformation via Industry 4.0, bridging these physical environments with digital through IoT, sensors and data analytics.

Without stable manufacturing processes, the entire supply chain can fall apart. With no product, companies have no means to generate profit, so any technological innovation which can boost production, increase efficiency, monitor quality and ensure safety warrants exploring.

Daimler Trucks’ data analytics

Daimler Trucks North America CIO Lutz Beck was previously focused on modernizing the company’s Asia arm by changing the whole supply chain through data analytics.

Working with Deloitte, the firm’s first transformational stage began with the Quality Management department, responsible for safety and performance on the factory floor.

improvement in identifying quality issues

reduction in fault detection time

saved in warranty costs in first year

The firm’s truck manufacturing facilities were augmented with a cognitive computing platform. It uses algorithms to analyze both structured and unstructured data to “proactively sense” potential faults in vehicles before they leave the factory floor.

According to the company, the platform has been able to predict and prioritize quality issues up to 13 months ahead of legacy systems and reduce fault detection time by 50%.

Daimler Trucks Asia expects to save $8 million in warranty costs during the first year of the project and more in recall expenditure.

Hirotec’s predictive analytics

Given that downtime in automotive firm Hirotec’s facilities can cost up to $361 per second, the company wanted to make its factories smarter, more efficient and mitigate the risk of such costly disruption.

By pairing with PTC, the firm – which manages 26 facilities across nine countries – chose to invest in predictive analytics within its factories.

Servers have been installed on the factory floor that communicate with IoT sensors and cloud data services to generate and store manufacturing information. This data is then used by a machine learning platform to give the firm clear visibility on production and is also used to monitor equipment and predict potential maintenance issues.

Hirotec says that after running three pilot schemes using the technology, the firm was able to achieve a 100% reduction in manual inspection time. The system will be rolled out to new facilities in the future.

potential downtime costs

pilot schemes

reduction in manual inspection time