Shop floor connectivity across your supply chain - How to roll out your global empire with ease

Shop floor connectivity across your supply chain How to roll out your global empire with ease

Scalability 1 PART

The first industrial revolution used steam to increase productivity. The second introduced electricity to the mix. The third brought IT systems into the fold. Now that we’re well into the fourth, what has been the single biggest introduction? It’s debatable, but you wouldn’t be far wrong if you said ‘connectivity’. The last two decades especially have seen rapid advances in network technologies. What these advances allow is the true implementation of the internet of things (IoT) and the industrial internet of things (IIoT). Devices can talk to each other. Devices can talk to unified digital platforms. And unified digital platforms can talk to globally reaching cloud infrastructures. With 5G networking and WiFi 6/7 enabling larger packets of data to be shared faster, this is all happening in near-real time. In this ebook, we want to examine how connectivity, in all its forms, can help revolutionise businesses across the manufacturing spectrum. We’ll be examining this idea through the lens of our four core pillars; scalability, usability, sustainability, and affordability.We hope you enjoy this read, and if it prompts any questions, we’ll provide all our contact details towards the back of the book. All the best Team Atlas Introduction Connectivity in modern manufacturing SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Every company’s data value chain starts with collection and moves to impact. Our equipment, the way we work, our output and eventual success, all creates mountains of data. How we make use of that data separates the success stories from the rest of the pack. Shop floor connectivity, linking the things that do in your organisation to digital platforms capable of crunching massive amounts of data, empowers businesses to make data led decisions. With the right systems, your data value chain can be enhanced; from identifying and collecting massive amounts of data, to analysis and enhancement of that data, through to its use, transformation, and reuse. Connectivity is no longer about linking one machine to another with a cable, but about linking complex engineering masterpieces throughout the globe to central data hubs. In our previous ebook, we looked at a fictional baker and how digital threads and supply chain management systems could help them grow into a global powerhouse. We’ll be revisiting our baker throughout this ebook too, seeing how shopfloor connectivity considerations can help their worldwide bread creation and delivery empire; GloboBake. Scalability Scalability in shop floor connectivity SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Simply put, without scalability shop floor connectivity systems are hamstrung. IIoT systems are built with efficiency in mind and that’s what they bring to manufacturing centres. Operations become automated, output increases, and financial rewards are reaped. Shop floor connectivity also means your production systems can be linked to your delivery systems. That means the machines that make the things you sell, can talk to the people who sell the things they make. Production becomes based on the demand of your customer base, eliminating waste. With this level of efficiency and sustainability, growth is inevitable and scalability is essential. Scalability How can simple scalable solutions help a business? SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Our fictional baking enterprise, GloboBake, has a range of shop floor connectivity challenges. Their main production facilities have a multitude of traditional equipment types, from dough kneading machines to ovens. Each one is made up of innumerable moving parts, sensors and other important bits. None of these are complex, in themselves, but the volume they represent makes them near impossible to manage individually. Shop floor connectivity here has clear benefits. Creating a unified approach to these disparate systems opens the door to so many things for GloboBake. Automating production and quality control means less energy used overall and easier maintenance of machines that monitor their own condition. Repeatable processes in the baking production lines can be created and rolled out in facilities from London to Lisbon. Money is saved, production can happen in a more sustainable way, and GloboBake continues to be the world leader in bread. Scalability How does complexity factor into scalable shop floor connectivity? SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

But what about the more complex end of things? With all their success, GloboBake has had the opportunity to invest in innovation. As part of a number of exciting research projects, GloboBake have produced a whole new gluten free bread that has exciting health benefits and tastes incredible. The complex and unstructured data these sorts of projects create can be used by specific AI bots to monitor the data in real time at the edge. On top of that, they can make predictions about the quality of the bread being used, feeding that data back into the processes involved in creating bread as it’s baked. The drawback is, they can only produce it using equipment of their own design. This equipment is more complex, and unique to their enterprise. Unlike the less complex and easily scalable elements of their traditional production and output, this needs time and care to be connected up to the central digital platform they use. Obviously this is less scalable, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t benefit from the same digital platform that handles their mass production. With the right system, they can create a digital profile of their unique equipment that can be rolled out across the globe, easily duplicating a tangle of bespoke processes without fuss. SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Companies need to understand what they’re connecting to, how complicated that thing is, and what value it will bring to the business. As with every other aspect of business development, it’s about cost vs reward and potential returns on investment. As we’ve already discussed, connecting simple components to digital systems is not only straight forward, relatively speaking, but it’s ultimately scalable. The more complex and unique the device is, the harder it’s going to be to rollout connectivity at scale. That’s not to say that this end of the spectrum isn’t worth pursuing, just that the extra time taken and resources needed are worth taking into consideration. The challenges faced in planning for connectivity at scale are probably as varied as the potential rewards. It depends on the industry, the company, and the people involved what the particular challenges are going to be. That being said, we would suggest taking into account these three things as priorities. Scalability What do companies need to remember? SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Coming back to COTS vs SaaS Any digital system you adopt needs to work now, but also needs to be able to adapt in the future to work well with new systems, equipment, or methodologies that your business adopts. In the fourth industrial revolution, enterprises have access to resources that make these ventures infinitely more viable. Common data models (CDM), standardised logical infrastructure for applications, take much of the heavy lifting off developments in digital projects. With the support of things like CDMs, shop floor connectivity projects can achieve more by having standardised frameworks at their core, from which either scalable and simple solutions can be built. Or, complex and unique ideas can find common ground with each other. Business Value A ‘Marginal Gain’ when scaled across a global network can make a massive impact. Equally, a massive success in a corner of a corner of your business might mean nothing when compared to the bigger picture. What’s important is that you don’t discount the one for the other and vice versa. Any improvement is a great thing, but it needs to be weighed in terms of overall benefit and increase in profit and productivity. Scalability Interoperability & business value SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Connecting every system within a facility is great. It can enable incredible results and is the baseline goal for achieving the factory of the future. Connecting every system in a facility, as well as every system in a global network of facilities, then connecting those facilities, that’s what true connectivity should aim for. To do that, you need a powerful cloud solution handling the massive amounts of data that can produce. But, you also need a solution to the bottlenecks that will start popping up in terms of data collection and transfer. Edge computing allows you to handle large amounts of data handling on, or near, your complex and connected facilities. Connectivity will get you up to date, edge computing will fire you into the future. With these three elements baked into your future plans, your shop floor connectivity goals can take shape. You will be able to grow without worrying about scalability, because scalability will be an inherent part of your growth. Adaptability will come naturally and your preparations will pay dividends. Scalability Edge capability SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Scalability Our top 5 takeaways Simple devices at scale can have a big impact on your business Is a machine connection really necessary? For example, does a machine alarm really relate to equipment downtime? Complex problems can be solved using AI Bots, but extrapolating this data might take time Connecting to PLC controllers can be valuable, but it is complex and can slow, or even stop, progress Don’t be afraid of the cloud and edge computing, it can work in harmony with your SCADA system to create powerful, scalable solutions to your shop floor data needs

Usability 2 PART

We’ve already made the case that the fourth industrial revolution is, at its core, one that is made possible through next level connectivity. One of the leading principles of this brave new world is the blurring of the lines between physical and digital worlds. What that means in practice is that our digital systems are becoming an integral part of our physical ones. To capitalise on the advances of the fourth industrial revolution everything from the largest pieces of manufacturing equipment to the finest sensors need to be able to connect to digital worlds. One of the main upshots of that is the ability to collect vast amounts of data. Another is that physical systems around the globe can come together under unified digital platforms. That means data is being collected en masse, and physical systems can be controlled from anywhere. This obviously opens up a massive amount of opportunities, but those opportunities would be lost without one consideration; usability. With usability at the centre of your digital solution, you can move from the challenge of simply collecting data to the opportunity of making it work for you efficiently. Any business that wants to set in place Six Sigma techniques such as Right First Time and DMAIC methodology can do so. Introduction Why usability is so important in shop floor connectivity considerations SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

GloboBake digitises one facility, connecting their simple sensors and industry standard machinery to a digital platform that will allow them to automate, iterate and improve on their baking processes. I think we can all agree, that’s a big step forward. This pilot project, proving a success, becomes the basis for a global rollout; an update to their facilities around the world. Here’s where the usability snag comes in. The initial pilot project was months in the making and went at a pace which allowed everyone involved to get up to speed on the use of the platform they had chosen. Due to the speculative nature of the project, this more measured pace wasn’t an immediate issue. Usability How do GloboBake make use of usability in their shop floor connectivity solution? SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Rolling these innovations out on a global scale means doing it at pace. GloboBake can’t afford to have the kind of downtime it takes to train up disparate facilities full of people on a system without usability at its core. G oing even deeper, GloboBake also has some pretty revolutionary baking equipment and techniques they’ve developed themselves. These elements on their own require specialist knowledge, but could also mean big wins in the future if they see mass market adoption. While a digital platform with usability at its core might not make the specifics of these innovation projects easier to understand, they can absolutely take the hassle out of duplicating them worldwide. SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Shop floor connectivity was initially about making GloboBake’s production facilities work more efficiently. These systems existed in closed ecosystems and were presided over by very specific sets of expertise. Innovation could happen, but it happened in pockets, siloed from the rest of the business. With the fourth industrial revolution allowing connectivity not just between different bits of equipment, but between entirely different locations and areas of the business, the opportunity to make use of data on an unprecedented level became apparent to the bright minds at GloboBake. With an open and accessible platform that links a digital thread running all the way from ingredient sourcing to customers purchasing baked goods, anyone along that thread can make use of that data. One GloboBake employee, having recently become versed in the ways of Six Sigma, realised now was the perfect time to revolutionise things for the business. They saw potentials for improvement that were being missed out on. Usability Usability gets you from challenge to opportunity fast SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Their main goal was to introduce a First Time Right (FTR) programme, and for that they would need access to usable, useful, impactful data. FTR means that the output of a process is right every time, from the first time. This will never be possible without measuring current processes, understanding them, and improving them. They needed good quality, usable data and they needed to put it to use. This GloboBake visionary needed to employee DMAIC or: Define Defining the problem is simple enough. Our employee looks at the global data for bread production and sees that there is too much wastage in production. Something, whether that’s the machinery itself, a lack of training in staff, or any other factor, is resulting in a less than 100% success rate in their baking processes. Measure Measuring the processes involved, seeing the resources used and the people engaged in it will begin to build a picture of what the issues are. Data on when errors occurred, where, and what reasons were logged for them, all need to be collated and compared to find patterns and potential hotspots for trouble. This data could be reported in technical terms from the machines themselves. It might be delivered by shop floor managers or in feedback from employees. It could be logistical data from throughout their supply chain. Each data point could be delivered in different ways, in different values, and for different reasons. Their digital platform would need to be able to handle such a wide variety of data, both ingesting it and returning it to our GloboBake employee in a way they could make use of. Analyse Analysing all this data is where the usability jumps up a notch. Everything we’ve mentioned above can be collected with relative ease. But, making these data points usable is another thing. A digital platform that enables its users to find trends, compare and contrast data sets from unique sources, and to map out patterns is one that makes analysis available to everyone. SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN Define > Measure > Analyse > Improve > Control

Improve Improving the processes is about eliminating the sources of errors you’ve found through analysis. Within a unified digital ecosystem this could be done as a logical extension to the analysis phase, allowing users with varied expertise to instantly correct flaws and iterate towards the perfect process. Control Controlling these processes moving forwards involves having a platform smart enough, and usable enough, to keep an eye on the flaws and deviations you’ve found, alerting users to their future reappearance. With data collected, organised into usable information and acted upon in real time, our enterprising GloboBake employee is able to implement an FTR programme that can now be rolled out globally, using data their digital solution has handed to them on a plate. Moreover, they have processes in place that are intelligently tracking the areas of concern, alerting users to potential pitfalls and fixing errors before they happen. SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

We should never confuse the idea of usability with terms like ‘lightweight’. Just because a platform can be picked up simply, regardless of your background, doesn’t mean it can’t be capable of handling complex tasks. Shop floor connectivity is absolutely a complex consideration and it is broad in its scope. We’ve already talked about how connecting potentially thousands upon thousands of sensors, for example, is a relatively simple task. It’s big, but no single part of it is overly complex. But a system that does only that effectively is a system that misses out on the innovation potential of more singular, complex ventures. Adopting a digital solution to large scale connectivity challenges that doesn’t allow the mad scientists in your operation to create mechanical marvels that fit into the bigger picture and change the world, that’s a pure representation of wasted potential. It’s a fine line to tread, but any system you adopt needs to have the strength and efficiency to handle massive rollouts where marginal gains mean global impact, as well as the world changing projects innovators in your business might be working on. Usability Usability isn’t synonymous with ‘lightweight’ SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Usability Our top 5 takeaways A usable shop floor connectivity solution shortens the gap between challenge and opportunity It democratises data, allowing a variety of experts within your organisation the opportunity to engage with turning data into insight Data can be harvested from everywhere, and used by everyone Usability speeds up the rollout of scalable shop floor connectivity projects Usability should never be the enemy of complexity. One system should be able to handle simple and scalable projects, as well as unique and complex problems.

Sustainability 3 PART

Sustainability is a big word, and one we’re all possibly over familiar with these days. For that reason alone it’s important not to take a step back and remember what it actually means. Over familiarity with terms like sustainability can mean they lose their impact and importance. In reality, businesses need to be more sustainable for their own benefit and to ensure we’re safeguarding our world from irreversible climate change. On a grand scale, sustainability efforts help the world. On an individual level, they open opportunities for businesses to be leaner, more efficient, and more sustainable in ways beyond what we might expect. Sustainability in the global sense is about sustaining our environment. But a sustainable business is also one that weathers all storms. A sustainable business minimises its impact on the natural world, while maximising its longevity; adopting resource saving methodologies, waste minimisation techniques, and efficient business processes that maximises output. We’ve already demonstrated how a good connectivity solution takes into consideration scalability and how usability should also be at its core. So how does sustainability factor into the conversation? How could a shop floor connectivity solution help a business be more sustainable? Sustainability How shop floor connectivity enables sustainability SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

If you’re expanding a business from a single location to a national business, or a national business to a global one, doing so in a sustainable way is not only a good thing to do, it’s the smartest thing to do. With the proper use of information throughout a single site’s growth, the expansion of a business to multiple locations and across national borders is one that can happen sustainably. Mistakes made on a small scale can be tracked, understood, and avoided when scale begins. And it’s important to remember that connectivity doesn’t just touch the shop floor. That’s obviously the focus of these articles, but connectivity should have an impact throughout the entire supply chain. The industrial internet of things (IIoT) in terms of manufacturing tends to bring to mind our facilities, but it can and should enhance everything from logistics to product sales. With data being collected on your entire supply chain, you can achieve sustainability in many more ways as you scale. Achieving a lean approach means less delivery vehicles on the road, only when they need to be there. Less wasted energy in storage facilities and better use of the time of the people in your organisation. Scale can happen in a way that means every element in your business that might have a negative impact on the environment is being used as efficiently as possible. Sustainability Making sustainability simple SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Our fictional bakers have grown in many interesting ways. Through this series of articles, and through our series of articles on supply chain management, they’ve developed from a single shop to a leading light in the world of baked goods. To enable sustainable growth, they need data from the shop floor. They have a system that’s usable by the experts throughout their business, a system that enables scale, so how can they use the insight that system affords them to achieve their sustainable goals. Sustainability How GloboBake uses shop floor connectivity decisions to grow sustainably SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

In the above diagram, we can assume that GloboBake starts on the left. They make fantastic products, but the way they do so creates waste. Currently that waste is unanlysed and the lion’s share of it ends up in landfill. For a company with sustainable pretensions, this is no good. They produce a large amount of product, they’re profitable, but the means by which they achieve this has a negative effect on the environment and means they’re missing out on efficiency. Waste for GloboBake comes from many areas. There are times when the products they output don’t meet their exacting standards. This could be due to human error, poorly maintained equipment, mismanaged logistics or a number of other reasons. Reducing Waste Comparing the data collected on oven temperatures in one location could provide a solution to waste through burning in other locations. A minute adjustment of a degree can be rolled out globally and cut waste in half. Understanding the limitations of dough kneading machines can lead to predictive maintenance on a global scale, minimising downtime and maximising quality product production. Energy efficiency can be taken into account. GloboBake’s environmental officer can look at the uptime and downtime of machines in facilities operating under different circumstances and make adjustments to ensure that energy isn’t being used for no reason. Ensuring that when uptime is necessary, it’s happening. And when downtime is unavoidable, implementing energy saving measures that reduce the companies carbon footprint and save on costs. Becoming green Lean is good, but lean and green is better. Now that the basics of minimising waste have been attended to and automated across GloboBake’s facilities, they want to step it up a notch and become a truly green company. Whilst their product is close to perfect in terms of structural quality, some of the baked goods they produce don’t reach their aesthetic standards. SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

By integrating visual sensors that can evaluate the attractiveness of a baked good, they can funnel these less than perfect loafs to separate production lines. They might never make it to the shelf as thick sliced loaves, but they’re perfect for packets of breadcrumbs. GloboBake is moving into the green square. They’re not just reducing waste, they’re reusing and recycling previous unsellable products. Again, minimising their impact on the environment and maximising their efficiency and productivity at the same time. Evolving sustainably Minimising waste, reducing, reusing, and recycling are all taken care of to a greater or lesser extent. The landfills now see almost no direct input from GloboBake. The ingredients they turn into baked goods, one way or another, find their way to suppliers and into the hands of hungry customers. Through careful analysis of the data their shop floor connectivity solution affords them, GloboBake can now focus on the real minute and previously unavoidable wastes their processes create. Recipe management can be enhanced using smart systems. Loss and waste can be tracked, analysed, and understood. GloboBake’s digital systems can take data directly from their equipment, enhance their recipes and feed back new, leaner, more sustainable recipes to the shop floor. Kneading machines, for example, inevitably create slightly more dough than can be loaded into loaf tins. Unused ingredients left in loaders for too long become unusable and need to be replaced. Many other examples of waste that are minute in local terms can collectively create large areas of waste in a global business. A shop floor connectivity solution that’s able to spot these wastes, build intelligent solutions, and automatically enhance recipe management, is one that enables remanufacturing of these elements, redesign of these processes, and recovery of otherwise perfectly usable elements. SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

The heart of any manufacturing enterprise is the equipment. Without equipment being used, sustainably or otherwise, product isn’t created and profit isn’t realised. This is where the concept of overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) comes in. And with it, the lofty goal of total effective equipment performance (TEEP). OEE as a metric describes how well manufacturing equipment is utilised. An OEE of 100% would mean that only quality output is being produced, at the highest speed, without any interruptions. Or in OEE terms, 100% Quality, 100% performance, and 100% availability. TEEP is closely linked, but maps OEE against calendar hours rather than against operating hours. Meaning that for a TEEP of 100%, an enterprise would need to run with an OEE of 100% 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. For most organisations a TEEP of 100% is unrealistic, but it gives us that perfect metric we can work towards, while remembering that perfect should never be the enemy of progress. With a smart shop floor connectivity solution, attaining 100% OEE should be a core goal and it’s one that can and should directly relate to sustainability. With quality products being produced fast and without downtime, waste will inevitably be reduced. Energy efficiency should also be maximised. Sustainability Achieving Total Effective Equipment Performance SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

OEE is best described by looking at the ‘Six Big Losses’ it aims to eliminate. SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN 6 BIG LOSSE S BREAKDOWNS SETUP & ADJUSTMENT SMAL L STOPS REDUCED SPEED STARTUP REJECTIONS MANUFACTURIN G REJECTIONS A V A I L A B I L I T Y L O S S E S Q U A L I T Y L O S S E S P E R F O R M A N C E L O S S E S Six BIG Losses Productivity Improvement explained

Availability losses make up the first two of the Six Big Losses. They’re characterised as breakdowns and setup and adjustments. Breakdowns are probably the most straightforward and easy to comprehend. If a machine is broken down, it’s not going to be producing a product, and it’s going to be holding up a manufacturing process. It’s going to take time, energy, and resources to get back online and could result in waste, for example ingredients needing to be replaced. With cutting edge shop floor connectivity systems, breakdowns can be understood, predicted and dealt with much more efficiently. At a base level, breakdowns can be communicated immediately by sensors on the machines alerting a system that can alert maintenance engineers and provide information on the breakdown. But this is reactive. A more advanced solution would be to track maintenance alerts and understand the circumstances which cause breakdowns. In this way, predictive maintenance can be achieved and downtime can be planned, with maintenance happening before it’s needed and as part of an efficient process. Setup & adjustment can both be improved by shop floor connectivity systems as well. By understanding how various equipment in your enterprise has operated over its lifetime, expanding your operations can become smoother. New locations with new equipment can be set up and calibrated in such a way that the initial setup achieves the efficiency that previous equipment has, straight out of the box. Sustainability How availability losses can be minimised using shop floor connectivity solutions SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Keeping 100% speed and minimising performance losses, here characterised as small stops and reduced speed, is more subtle than our availability losses. Small stops and reduced speed aren’t issues that cause full breakdowns of equipment. These are rather times when equipment stops functioning for shorter periods, or operates at slower than optimal speeds, for reasons that don’t require maintenance. These stops and slowdowns are typically solved by the workers operating the machine and tend to be chronic. Small issues that turn up day after day. Individually they can seem unimportant but collectively, globally, they can add up to major losses in efficiency. Often the powering up and powering down of equipment can be the most ener gy intensiv e periods, and having these shortstops continue can result in power surges and energy spikes that have a direct impact on sustainability. With shop floor connectivity done right, these incidents can be tr ack ed and understood as part of a big picture. Solutions to these small problems can be mapped out and implemented across global networks. At scale, these minor solutions can mean major energy savings. Sustainability How performance losses can be minimised using shop floor connectivity solutions SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Quality losses are probably the clearest example of waste in OEE. Defective products are something we’ve covered already and it’s clear why they produce waste. If your equipment isn’t producing to a standard that meets your customers expectations, it’s a waste. That means the ingredients or components, time, resources, and energy that went into creating it has not resulted in something salable and that’s not sustainable. Startup rejections are a bit more complex. This isn’t about the everyday running of your operation but rather the waste a manufacturing enterprise incurs when spinning up new equipment. While your shop floor engineers dial in the specifics, test variables and adjust settings, it’s possible that inferior products are produced, again leading to waste. In both of these cases, we can clearly see how your sustainable shop floor connectivity solution is key. Every piece of equipment in your enterprise can and should be feeding back data to a central point, allowing for defects to be spotted and minimised, with the processes used to create them growing and evolving to become less wasteful and more efficient over time. And this process should help you cut your startup rejections to as close as zero as possible. With ever evolving data models and understanding of how things have worked, you’ll have a better and better understanding of how new equipment should work. Sustainability How quality losses can be minimised using shop floor connectivity solutions SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Sustainability Our top 5 takeaways Scale can be sustainable with the right data being collected and used Maintain your equipment before it needs maintenance and eliminate breakdowns Make what you and your customers need in the right quantity at the right quality Shop floor connectivity can help you achieve sustainable energy utilisation IIoT goes beyond shop floor connectivity and across your whole supply chain

Affordability 4 PART

So far we’ve looked at how your chosen solution should be scalable, we’ve discussed how usability needs to be a key concern, and how sustainability should be factored in. To wrap things up, we’re discussing how affordability relates to shop floor connectivity. We’re not just looking at the price of the solution you go for, though that’s obviously a key element. We’re also going to investigate how your connectivity solution should provide a positive ROI. We’ll be shaking down the cost of data and how your connectivity solution should keep that price to a minimum. And we’ll be talking about how the right solution, implemented correctly, can help collect the right data necessary to keep your costs low. Affordability Connectivity and the affordability of data SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

COTS, or commercial off-the-shelf, solutions can seem very appealing in the short term. If you find a COTS solution that matches your needs then the temptation to plump for it is a fair one. They’re ready to rock out of the box, they require minimal updates and adjustments, and, in the short term, they can get to fixing whatever issues you might have at that time. Finally, you’ll probably pick one which matches your price point at the time. That’s the essence of affordability, right? When taking the long view, the drawbacks become clear. While they’re a one time buy and you made the right financial choice for the moment, restrictions in their application could end up costing you in the future. If a COTS solution helps you grow but doesn’t scale with you, it quickly becomes a drag rather than a benefit. Trying to fit your global aspirations into a software solution designed for a single location business isn’t going to work. At worst, it’ll create an unmanageable level of technical debt. A SaaS solution with a business focused, scalable pricing model should sit at whatever price fits your current scope. At Atlas, we’ve chosen to price our products by usage rather than arbitrary metrics like seats taken or hours used. That way, the price of using Atlas scales with your use of it, matching your growth at every step. Affordability The affordability of SaaS SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

A good analogy for this that’s risen in popularity is Pizza as a Service. On one end of the spectrum you have a completely homemade pizza. You source the ingredients, make the pizza dough, bake it in your own oven, using your own energy, and you serve it on your own table. This is your traditional, all on premises solution. In the middle you have take-and-bake pizzas and delivery pizzas. These have some of the responsibility taken off your plate (pun certainly intended), whether that’s the creation and sourcing of ingredients or the use of the pizza joint’s ovens. But, some elements are still provided by yourself. These are your Infrastructure/Platform as a Service analogues. Finally you’ve got a dine in experience where every element is provided to you by the restaurant you’re dining at. This is where SaaS lives. Expanding on that analogy, you can see that SaaS offers serious benefits. Not only are you getting a software solution that’s updated regularly, you’re also receiving the benefits of every enhancement the software provider makes; from better equipment, more stable platforms, new technologies and improved delivery methods. As their security improves, so does yours. As their infrastructure improves, so does yours. As everything on the SaaS provider’s end improves, so does yours. Affordability What do you get with SaaS SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Without a good shop floor connectivity solution implemented, linked to a smart digital platform, the cost of even collecting data will be prohibitive. Beyond that, the cost of turning that data into insight will always be too high. Time spent connecting your equipment to a single, unified digital platform would be time and resources wasted if that platform doesn’t turn the data you’re collecting into useful information. Moreover, the business insights you’re missing out on will put you behind your competition, meaning less revenue in the long run. If you’ve managed to connect your business up, with multitudes of sensors and next-gen networking, but the system you’ve put in place to handle that data lacks usability, you’re also wasting money. The data collected can’t be accessed by the people ready to make the data led decisions that will be increasing your efficiency, productivity, sustainability, and ultimately your bottom line. All of these above considerations make data expensive. If you’re not collecting it in a scalable fashion and making it usable, then any data led efforts are going to cost you more than they make you. Affordability What is the true cost of data? SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

So how do you avoid this? Well, start with a system that can handle simple, scalable shop floor connectivity. A digital platform that allows for all the equipment in a single location to be connected to the digital world is good, but one that allows all the equipment in a global operation to be connected is better. The second option won’t punish you for succeeding either. As your business expands, connectivity should be an easy and integral part of your growth. Data led decisions can be made as you grow, ensuring the most efficient processes are put in place ahead of time, making your data work for you and the resources spent on it provide a greater ROI. A smart connectivity solution should enable automation in data handling too. If you’re spending people hours on data collection and cleansing, you’re wasting money and talent. Your connectivity platform should be capable of handling the grunt work on its own, freeing up time and resources to be spent on innovation and achieving the next big thing. Your chosen solution should have usability at its core too. Without it you are again going to be wasting hours of your experts’ time that could be better spent revolutionising your business. Going further, if your solution is usable by all the people in your company then they can turn it into insight that helps you save money in a wider variety of areas, not just those your shop floor experts might have eyes on. Affordability How do you make your data affordable? SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Our imaginary baking empire has had a lot to consider on their journey. From scalable supply chain management issues to usability in connectivity, we’ve really put them through their paces and seen how they rise (no pun intended!) to any challenge. One problem they’ve faced is how to make their use of data affordable. From oven temperatures to product viability, their facilities produce mountains of data and they need a way to make it usable. Even more importantly, they need those means to be affordable. During their initial growth period, their systems were very manual. Unconnected equipment needed to be read manually, with that information being loaded into siloed systems that failed to handle data in a meaningful way. From their shop floor operatives through to their sustainability champions, no one had easy access to the data they needed to make meaningful change. On top of that, any data collection and processing they did required excessive time and resources committed to it. They needed to commit people to checking the machines for readouts. They needed to commit hours to getting these readouts loaded into a clunky system. Then they needed to commit resources to making this data usable. This was costing them too much and holding them back from scaling in a way that worked. Affordability How GloboBake cost their data SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

By introducing an intelligent shop floor connectivity solution, GloboBake was able to make leaps forward in the way they handled data. The system they chose was robust enough for them to link up massive amounts of sensors as well as unique, bespoke pieces of equipment. With everything connected, their chosen connectivity solution collected and sorted data, turning data chaos into data insight. Their technical heads were able to put their expertise to good use, building AI bots they were able to deploy to edge devices around the globe that allowed for even better data handling within the platform. With data flowing in accessible, meaningful ways, the rest of the organisation were able to get to putting that data to good use. Their sustainability experts were able to spot areas where energy efficiency could be improved and costs reduced. Their logistics experts found redundancies that could be removed, again saving money and minimising waste. Throughout the business small improvements were made at scale as well as big changes in unique areas. They were able to roll out improvements to their processes that kept them in line with changing legislation, avoiding costly repercussions from lagging behind on legal requirements. By implementing an intelligent connectivity system, GloboBake made the collection and utilisation of data not only affordable, but profitable. Affordability How did GloboBake make their data affordable? SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

All industries have to comply with legislation somewhere along the line. Whether that’s in terms of energy efficiency, quality control, health and safety, or any other area for concern. By having total control of the data produced within your organisation you can avoid costs associated with non- compliance. If your equipment isn’t operating efficiently, if you’re consistently shipping products that don’t meet compliance, these things will eventually incur fines or requirements to upgrade your facilities, potentially halting production. Looking to the future, compliance isn’t ever just about the here and now. For one extreme example, the aerospace industry requires comprehensive data to be kept for the life of an engine plus twenty years. This could be decades worth of data for a single product. Any connectivity platform needs to facilitate the affordable archive, storage, and eventual retrieval of that data to ensure costly gaps don’t appear. It’s also vital to be able to sort between what is and what will be needed to keep costs down. The most comprehensive solution might be to keep every single piece of data, but that can quickly become unmanageable and make retrieval of vital data difficult. Instead, you need a system that knows what must be archived, and what data can be set free, and when. Affordability Avoiding Cost and Capitalising on Opportunities - Legislation SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

With a system that is fully integrated and connected across all equipment, sites, and throughout your supply chain; you can build a comprehensive, tracked and traceable record of success. Once again, this isn’t just about storing everything, because providing a new customer your entire business life story is going to be unwieldy at best, and off putting at worst. Instead you need a system that can automatically create a certificate of conformity that can build confidence in your potential customers using just the data they need to see. Furthermore, intelligent shop floor connectivity solutions can be directly linked to feedback systems from your end user. As customers receive and evaluate your product, you can instantly make adjustments to your manufacturing processes to better meet their expectations. Time and resources spent collecting and analysing customer requirements, only to translate them into meaningful change in your production is minimised. Your value gaps are closed, your time to market for new products is reduced, and your production processes are constantly evolving and improving. The data you pull in from your connectivity solutions meets your customer requirements in a digital platform that allows for simultaneous understanding and improvement, minimising waste and maximising revenue. Affordability Avoiding Cost and Capitalising on Opportunities - Customer Requirements SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Taking control of your data through intelligent connectivity systems puts business insight into your world and under your control. More often than not 3rd parties are needed to help provide real business insight, but with all the information at your fingertips that shouldn’t be necessary. Connectivity in the fourth industrial revolution means business insight can come from within. With your entire supply chain connected to smart systems you can see from the top down and inside out where redundancies exist and improvements can be made. Discrete manufacturing enterprises can live up to the lean and Six Sigma ideals of overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and statistical process control (SPC), meaning every step of the manufacturing journey can achieve absolute efficiency. Money wasted on subpar products and inefficient methods of production can be minimised and eliminated where possible. Intelligent connectivity systems can enable this by collecting, cleaning, archiving and evolving data over time as necessary. Minute by minute data collection can happen and be utilised in the moment, before being aggregated and understood as long term trends and patterns. All this makes real-time adjustments as possible as future decision making based on well presented data. Affordability Avoiding Cost and Capitalising on Opportunities - Business Insight SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Whether it’s DevOps, Enterprise Ops, Machine Learning Ops (MLOps), or whatever Ops you can imagine, they all live and die on the data available to them. Next level connectivity means not only is the data provided to your Ops operatives good, but it can be put to good use. MLOps teams can create bespoke solutions to unique problems and deploy them to edge devices around the globe. Your Enterprise Ops teams can create simple, scalable solutions that make minor changes on a massive scale for real return on investment of time and resources. The data you produce can be put to use by experts that make it both an affordable option and one that increases overall revenue. Affordability Avoiding Cost and Capitalising on Opportunities - OPs SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

The wrap up

Scalable shop floor connectivity solutions are smart because they allow for data to be harvested, understood, and made use of by your whole organisation. As you feel the positive impact you can grow without these solutions hamstringing you due to their limited focus or application. With usability at their core, your shop floor connectivity solution can remove the barrier to entry for experts throughout your organisation. Data can be collected from throughout your supply chain and put to use at any link within it. Small changes can happen en masse while complex problems can find elegant solutions. Sustainability improves as data insight illuminates hidden areas where energy and waste expenditure can be minimised. Compliance can be met and as new technologies and methodologies arise which allow for ever more efficiency, they can be seamlessly integrated into your business. At the end of it all, a good shop floor connectivity solution is an affordable one. It’s one that makes everything from data harvesting to data analysis and insight affordable. It means these efforts don’t sit as inevitable costs but smart investments. Wrap up What’s the bottom line in shop floor connectivity? SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

We hope you’ve loved this journey into the world of shop floor connectivity. It’s a topic that fascinates us and we’re constantly learning about, so we’ll be back in future to update our thoughts and pass on what we’ve learned to you. If you have any thoughts on anything you’ve read, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. You can email us, follow us on LinkedIn , Twitter , and Instagram , or visit our website for more information. We’d love to hear from you How to get in touch SHOP FLOOR CONNECTIVITY ACROSS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN We’d love to hear from you

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