The Internet of Things opens up the "human body" function of manufacturing enterprises and realizes transparent "intelligence"

At present, the trend of smart manufacturing is impacting the face and direction of the world's manufacturing industry, and there have been many voices in the industry talking about this topic. For example, what is the direction of future industrial evolution, what kind of purpose does smart manufacturing have to achieve, and why do many companies start to compete for the development of the industrial Internet of Things?

In response to these questions, Li Kai, head of the smart manufacturing business of the Industrial Division of Schneider Electric (China) Co., Ltd. pointed out that the rapid development of smart manufacturing and industrial Internet of Things in recent years is closely linked to the current trend of the industrial sector and development. The first step in smart manufacturing is to use the Internet of Things technology to achieve transparency.

Transparency: The First Step of Intelligent Upgrade of Manufacturing Industry

Li Kai said that in recent years, Schneider Electric, as a leader in digital transformation in the field of global energy efficiency management and automation, has seen increasingly clearly that the social and industrial sectors are facing the future trend of electrification, digitization, low carbonization and decentralization. .

In fact, many market phenomena, technological advances, and policy trends have confirmed these trends. The electric power industry seems to have been a traditional industry in many people's eyes, but electrification is still a strong trend of unabated growth. In the next few decades, the world’s demand for electricity will reach an unimaginable scale; digital The rapid development will enable all sectors of the society to have a growing number of information nodes; the trend of low carbonization is evident from the phenomenon of current urban traffic electrification; and the trend of decentralization is reflected in information storage operations, corporate operations, and energy production. Such ubiquitous decentralization, such as cloud applications in business and industry, wind power in solar energy, solar power generation, and smart microgrids reflect this trend.

Looking back at China, we all know that China is a big manufacturing country and one of the markets with the greatest demand for new industrial technologies on a global scale. In order to meet the challenges of the future, China has already put forward the "Made in China 2025" plan from the policy level. From this, we can also see the government's judgment on the digitized and intelligent transformation of the manufacturing industry. What gap does China have from manufacturing to manufacturing to manufacturing? Li Kai believes that it mainly exists in production efficiency, unit energy consumption, and quality. The fundamental goal of digitalization and intelligence is to try to use less manpower and more. With less energy and raw material input, better output will be obtained.

For example, in the human factor aspect, just as the viewpoint that Apple CEO Cooke visited during his recent visit to China, China is no longer a country that has a significant advantage in terms of manpower cost. The future workforce will be provided with better treatment and work experience, and will play a more efficient and crucial role through more intelligent management. Another key challenge facing China's manufacturing industry is that energy consumption is also becoming more and more significant. For example, in some heavy industries such as cement, the average unit energy consumption level of Chinese companies is even less than that of India, which shows that the challenges are urgent, especially with the compliance regulation and market access in terms of energy consumption at home and abroad. The threshold is getting higher and higher, which has become a practical problem that must be resolved.

To solve these problems, for a real manufacturing company, the real problem is not that the entrepreneurs are not determined to upgrade or renovate, nor are they hindered by technology. It is precisely because many factories are opaque in terms of management dimensions, just like a "Black box." Li Kai said that the factory is the core of manufacturing, if the factory data information itself is not transparent, then there is no way to talk about intelligence. The lagging and invisible information of the factory “black box” hinders the factory's management operators from making optimized decisions and efficient responses. Therefore, we must first solve the "black box" and achieve transparency.

IoT architecture promotes interoperability and has unlimited potential

It is this kind of challenge that has promoted the vigorous development of the "industrial catalyst" of the Industrial Internet of Things. Difficulties in information collection, unobstructed delivery, and difficulty in achieving cloud computing and analysis have all been solved by the emergence of industrial Internet of Things. Li Kai pointed out that the cloud computing, mobile Internet, big data, Internet of things, and intelligent technologies have laid a very good technological foundation for the future intelligentization of production and operation management. These technologies can only be introduced after they are introduced into industrial applications. Really solve some chronic problems that the industry has been unable to solve in the past. Today, many companies have already put forward their plans and ideas for the industrial Internet of Things.

The model proposed by Schneider Electric is its globally launched Internet of Things-based EcoStruxureTM architecture and platform. According to Li Kai, EcoStruxure is divided into three levels from bottom to top. The bottom is the interconnected product layer, the middle layer is the edge control layer, and the top layer is the application, analysis and service layer. In order to adapt to the needs of the Internet of Things in the future, integrated industrial information security functions are integrated in these three layers. At the same time, the architecture supports both cloud deployment and local deployment, and can be flexibly configured and extended according to user requirements.

Li Kai said that the application, analysis and service layer of the top layer is the most easily ignored by many users in the past, and the opportunities for digital transformation in the future are also the most concentrated in this layer, which is why Schneider Electric values ​​it very much. The entire structure of industrial information security and cloud deployment capabilities, and so on, has invested a lot of resources in advance layout. He mentioned that in terms of value, Schneider Electric helps users achieve higher efficiency, higher production performance through digital transformation, and bring better return on investment through agile management, while at the same time, through remote, traceability To get active risk resolution.

Open up the "human body" function of manufacturing enterprises and realize transparent "intelligence"

Today, with the consensus reached by various suppliers on the prospect of interconnection, the extensive connection of hardware has long been no longer a problem. The core issue has become how to generate massive data from interconnected devices through acquisition and processing. The right time is provided to the right people for effective decision-making.

In this regard, Li Kai compares intelligent manufacturing companies with the human body. He points out that automation is equivalent to human limbs and is responsible for performing tasks; the digital system is equivalent to the human nervous system and is responsible for the communication and communication of various types of information and instructions; Lean production and operation technology is the wisdom of the mind, but also the most important core and key to intelligent manufacturing.

Under this thinking, Schneider Electric advocates the concept of "soft and hard combination, first soft and hard" and "first-to-medicine post-medicine". Under the premise of combing the needs of manufacturing companies in detail, it plans an orderly overall plan for its transformation and upgrading. In implementation, from the perspective of lean operation consulting, digital platforms, and services provided by the carrier-class, the introduction of various types of automation products and systems at the control level and equipment level in combination with actual needs will eventually create a transparent “chi "Create solutions.

In this regard, Li Kai likes to use a slightly joke saying: "There is hardly a single-handed deal between us and our customers. They are constantly learning in depth like 'marriage,' and they often repeat with multiple business units. Communication can sometimes help customers realize the real needs they didn’t realize at the beginning. Without the deep investigation and discussion of the “nervous” and “texture” of the enterprise, it would be very difficult to get a real landing and significant Effective intellectual solutions."