The Internet Comes to Manufacturing

Imagine anywhere, anytime access to all facets of your manufacturing process.

Data collected from every aspect of your business—from the order desk to the shop floor to the shipping dock—now is available 24/7, and all you need to access it is an Internet connection and a Web browser.

While the ability to monitor and tweak a machine in-process has been around for a few years, this technology has advanced to the point that facilities of every size now can get onboard. What has made this possible is new, user-friendly software systems that harness the power of an advanced level of hardware, system protocols, and human-machine interfaces (HMI).

Remote process adjustment is happening in many shops, but it’s the degree of the adjustment that varies. The challenge is convincing companies that remote monitoring, remote data collection, and remote process adjustment make sense.

If data is being collected, then it should be used. And, once again, new technology enables this.

Enter the Cloud

Cloud computing uses a network of externally hosted Internet servers to share, store, and manipulate data, rather than relying on a local hard-wired system. Cloud-based computer applications are accessed by a Web browser or even a mobile app, but the software and data are actually stored at a remote location. This software and information can then be accessed from anywhere at any time.

Imagine being able to access and edit large CAD files from any of your manufacturing facilities remotely. Think of the power and flexibility gained by having the same ability with your enterprise resource planning (ERP) or customer relationship management (CRM) software suites.

A report from the researchers at IDC Manufacturing Insights, Framingham, Mass., states that cloud computing “is the most important productivity platform for the next decade.”

Computing powerhouse Microsoft even polled 152 decision-makers of automotive, aerospace, electronics, and industrial equipment manufacturing companies in the U.S., France, and Germany for its 2011 Discrete Manufacturing Cloud Computing Survey. They said that the biggest benefit of cloud computing is the lowered cost of optimizing infrastructure. Efficient collaboration across geographies and the ability to respond quickly to business demands were also cited as benefits.

“Unless you have been in the computer industry for a couple of dec-ades, chances are that cloud computing is difficult to comprehend and very misunderstood,” explained Dave Edstrom, CEO and CTO of Virtual Photons Electrons, Ashburn, Va.

Edstrom also is the author of MTConnect: To Measure Is To Know, a book that addresses how open-source, royalty-free standards systems can revolutionize the business of manufacturing.

Cloud computing has potential to be game-changing technology in manufacturing for everyone from small shops to extremely large manufacturing plants. The key is understanding the process, asking the right questions, and making wise decisions.

“Cloud computing is important for manufacturing because it allows companies to avoid the countless business and technical issues associated with running their own data centers and save money by paying only for the computing resources when they need it on a pay-as-you-go model,” said Edstrom.

To truly understand and appreciate the benefits of cloud computing, however, it’s necessary to understand the cloud’s key building blocks: fast bandwidth, a Web browser, and large server farms.

• Fast bandwidth: Instead of moving an amount of data equivalent to a few lines of text every second, which happened during the days of dial-up Internet, you can now move the equivalent of a book per second.
• Web browser: The Web browser, whether it’s Internet Explorer, Chrome, or Firefox is the first point of entry for many software applications for both home and office. These products make it fast and easy to enter the Internet and access and manipulate data.
• Large server farms: Large server farms, like those at e-tailer Amazon, use only a small amount of their power during the year. While the company is very busy during the Christmas season, the rest of the year the systems are lightly used. Now the company sells time on its systems to offset the huge costs of running hundreds of thousands of computers. This power is the backbone of the cloud.

“With these three technical pillars of cloud computing in place, it allows software companies to offer their software on these large server farms as a service. In other words, users simply point their browser at the software in the cloud and begin to use it. You pay for what you use, when you use it,” said Edstrom.

Cloud-based Manufacturing

If you have a browser, you have all the software you need. The cloud can do the processing and the storage for you. ERP, CRM, and CAD/CAM systems are all simply software, and they all can be housed and run from the cloud.

“If your software vendors are not using the cloud, then you have to wonder if they are in it for the long run,” said Edstrom. “Forward-thinking companies are taking huge advantage of the cloud.”

Data is growing at phenomenal rates, and the cloud can be the right place to store all this data for many organizations.

Be Cautious With Security

One area of concern to manufacturers using the Internet to connect themselves to their equipment is security. In fact, in some cases, security, or more precisely a lack of security, can be a show-stopper.

“With proper precautions, risk can be greatly minimized but never goes to zero,” said Edstrom.

Finding an expert is important, especially if you plan on using wireless technology. While wireless technology seems like a perfect choice, this is not necessarily the case.

“Using wireless depends on availability,” said Edstrom. “Sometimes the photons flying around shops cause havoc with 3G and 4G technology. You need to test it out to see how reliable it is to begin with. I am not convinced that enabling manufacturing equipment in a shop with 3G and 4G communications would be my first path on getting a shop connected to the Internet. Wired is best, then wireless.”

Whether it is at rest, for example, residing on a disk drive, or in-flight, like it is when on a network, you should always be paranoid about your data.

“The biggest mistake companies make is selecting an old security protocol and thinking they are safe. Everything should be encrypted,” he said. “If the company is a large, world-class manufacturer, they better have a chief security officer (CSO).”

For most businesses today, being disconnected from the Internet is not a viable option. Because of this, cyber security audits also are a good idea. They will identify possible security problems and help keep your data secure.