Predictive maintenance technology saves on maintenance costs and downtime

By OEM Update Editorial April 1, 2022 4:39 pm IST

Digitisation has opened new opportunities and led to exploring more challenges in factory automation and robotics.

Digitisation influences factory automation and robotics ‘

Digitisation helps the industry change: how it operates, improving work tasks and effectiveness. The digital era is enabling the manufacturing industry to work smarter and more efficiently and making it possible for us to ensure a safe workplace for our employees. The way I see it, digitisation has opened new opportunities and led to exploring more challenges in factory automation and robotics. This combination of people and technology has become our great advantage. I believe that continuous innovation in automation and robotics is necessary to improve safety and efficiency to remain competitive as digitisation is gaining popularity. 

Digital transformation has an impact on all aspects of the business. If you organise this adequately based on an exact strategy, it will give you a head start. The technology implementation helps businesses with better connectivity, substantial cost savings, error reduction, better decision-making, and it also accelerates innovations. Digitisation along with automation and robotics, are essential to the future of any business. While the barrier to entry for advanced technology may seem high, B&R has an easily integrable solution that can provide a simple access point for businesses to gain a competitive advantage. 

Manufacturing industry needs to integrate AI and machine learning 

Today, we live in a time where smart machines have started ruling production lines. Well-connected machines in the manufacturing line or factory shop floor are able to exchange an enormous amount of meaningful data. In addition, the deployment of machine learning and artificial intelligence are some technologies that help businesses to optimise their offerings further and make their machines and lines smart. However, a truly connected enterprise would be a reality if the entire value chain, supply chain, logistics, deliveries, and grids were connected with the possibility of taking decisions and actions based on events. Undoubtedly, incorporating one technology at a time will eventually help in such intense connectivity aspirations of the smart factory. 

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Advanced automation technologies are essential to keep connected production lines running through predictive maintenance and tackling the issues before they become unfavourable to the businesses. Businesses cannot afford to lose precious time to manufacturing issues in highly competitive manufacturing industries or allow small defects to spiral into the closure of production lines. The future of profitable and efficient manufacturing lies in digitisation and businesses truly embracing the technologically driven insights of predictive maintenance. Made possible by digitisation, predictive maintenance is helping businesses avoid downtime by catching issues before they arise. Adding predictive maintenance technology to a manufacturing operation can save on maintenance costs and downtime while extending the expected life of machinery. 

Challenges and opportunities in adopting factory automation and robotics 

As automation and robotics increasingly complement human labour in the workplace, we must adjust to reap the benefits. Automation and robotics transform businesses and contribute to economic growth via enhancing productivity, efficiency, and quality. However, the first challenge in adopting the technology is not knowing where to begin for some organisations. The technology awareness is good, but every company has its own systems, people, and processes and it’s tough to push through this legacy. Another challenge lies in deciding the right degree and approach for automation and robotics technology. But once all things start falling in place, the growing degree of automation and robotics will reap the rewards for the businesses and the overall economy. As the industry is experiencing new technologies, manufacturers have realised that the drives and controls significantly influence it. 

Safeguard health and comfort for workers in SME factories 

Establishing a local safety and health program at the workplace is one of the most effective ways of protecting the most valuable assets i.e., the employees. Setting up a proper in-house safety and health program is a proactive approach to ‘finding and fixing’ hazards before they can cause any injury. Through available advanced technologies, organisations can turn safety into a competitive advantage.Today, manufacturing processes have transformed, and robots no longer need to be bounded by cages. Humans and robots are seen collaborating on various activities on the shop floors with all necessary safety mechanisms in place. Based on human proximity and touch, the robots take required actions to reduce speeds, torque, etc., and provide a safe operating environment for humans in their vicinity. Such cobots (collaborated robots) increase their presence thick and fast on shop floors. With the safety technologies, robots are mounted right above a shop floor operator without worrying about accidents, which was impossible a couple of years back.