Cases on Industrial Wireless Network (I.W.N.) Technologies
Industrial Wireless Networks (I.W.N.) has the advantages of low cost, flexibility and easy implementation and plays an important part in Industry 4.0 and implementation for a smart factory (Li et al., 2017). This case study of Li et al. (2017) explains the steps of implementation of I.W.N. to achieve smart manufacturing using cloud and Big Data. The main goal of Industry 4.0 is mass customisation and this case details the principle and operation of smart factories to achieve this goal.
Figure 6.2 shows the main components of the I.W.N. models. It has a smart factory with R.F.I.D. tagged raw products, smart sensors, smart machines and smart robots, a conveyor system, I.W.N. system management, smart terminals and a private industrial cloud.
The principle of operation of the I.W.N. model is as follows:
i. User provides input of their preferences and choices to the webpage, which is then loaded to the server
FIGURE 6.2 Architecture of case study based on I.W.N. (Courtesy: Li et ah, 2017).
ii. The private cloud builds the machine processing program, related conveyance requirements and issues instructions to smart machines and workers
iii. The other related information is fed to the management system for necessary validation and decision-making.
Here, I.W.N. provides a link for the raw products, machines, conveyance and networks to communicate and enable the realisation of Industry 4.0 and smart factory.
Industrial Internet of Things (I.I.o.T.) Technologies
The case studies that involve technologies based on Industrial Internet of Things (I.I.o.T.) and are commercially available are presented here.
This case study (‘Smart cylinder and Industry 4.0’, 2018) presents a smart gas cylinder that uses I.I.o.T. to self-monitor the gas levels and does inventory management without need for human intervention. In this case, a mobile application mentioning the stack is developed based on Bluetooth LE wireless technology. This application will scan the gas cylinder while entering the warehouse and from the measured gas level, it evaluates the time to stock out. It reorders the gas cylinder, considering the lead time. The timely reorder enables effective and efficient inventorying, reducing the cost of inventory and reducing the risk of stock outs. Figure 6.3 shows the working architecture of a smart gas cylinder. This application will be useful for an industry that uses gas cylinders as raw materials or other energy supply and enables order replenishment and hence implementation of Industry 4.0 using a wireless network. These smart cylinders can also be incorporated into a smart supply chain where replenishment and delivery are done without human intervention and will avoid stock outs and also minimise inventory.
The case study about Air Separation Units (A.S.U.) (‘Air separation units and Industry 4.0’, 2018), in which nitrogen and oxygen are separated for industrial uses, show a lot of variation in demand. A.S.U. also require very tight quality control. Such units require a lot of time for shifting of orders and may incur heavy losses
FIGURE 6.3 Smart gas cylinder supply chain case study (Courtesy: ‘Smart Cylinder and Industry 4.0’, 2018).
when quality issues arise. Industry 4.0 provides an opportunity for A.S.U. by using the Industrial Internet of Things (I.I.o.T.) and expert systems. This model enables remote operation of independent A.S.U. operators at a low cost. This provides access to real-time performance of the plant and also makes adjustments to the quality requirements of the customers. These remotely located A.S.U. operating centres not only monitor the performance, they also adjust the operation.
Many organisations take initiatives to reduce energy consumption, reduce CO, emissions and install technologies that could bring about these advantages But the predicted savings are often not realised due to poor monitoring of the energy consumption. This case study aims to avoid energy waste with an Industry 4.0 approach (Avoid energy waste’, 2018). In Industry 4.0, such cases are regularly monitored using I.I.o.T. and any discrepancies are immediately taken care of. The steps of the approach are initially: (i) new installations are checked for the actual savings against predicted saving/advantages through completion management system (C.M.S.) and then, (ii) monitor energy consumption and analyse deviations from predicted or expected performance using a Collaborative Energy Efficiency Programme (C.E.E.P.)
Often, in industries, energy costs are higher and also least interfered with due to unavailability of technologies to monitor energy usage. Hence, this case study (‘Energy management’, 2018) deals with energy management using Industry 4.0 techniques and technologies to avoid such energy loss. The case study has used C.P.S. to capture real-time data on the door operation of a direct fired radiant tube heater for heating requirements of the shop floor space. The measured temperature, set points and gas consumption enable C.P.S. to make decisions with the goal of reducing or minimising energy waste. This, when integrated with the controller allows the system to stop operation when the doors are opened, and prevent high gas consumption during cold days.
