Manufacturing Revolution Takes Hold as the Internet of Things Extends to Shop-Floor

MIDDLEWICH, U.K. - July 24, 2014 - PRLog -- It’s good to be recognised for pioneering technology. Frost and Sullivan, the US business growth consultants, have acknowledged the productivity potential and disruptive power of Forcam’s Smart Factory technology with the ‘New Product Innovation Leadership Award’ for 2014. Forcam has more than 50,000 processes and machine tools networked via its Factory Framework advanced manufacturing execution system (MES).

One of the first UK companies to appreciate the power of Factory Framework was Weir Minerals where their Todmorden factory recorded a 12 per cent improvement in output in the first six months. The company continues to see year-on-year improvement and is now looking to wider applications in UK and overseas divisions. Precision aerospace component manufacturer, the Hyde Group, has also seen significant benefit. Automotive producers such as Audi, BMW and Daimler wre early adopters of the system and Daimler now has 15,000 machine tools and processes interconnected by Factory Framework.

“There is a lot of hype about the Internet of things (IoT) – about smart homes, intelligent cars and systems that will monitor our fitness and health – but the application to manufacturing has the potential to be truly revolutionary,” explained Charlie Walker, Forcam’s UK manager. “Many early adopters are achieving productivity gains of 20 per cent or more. Machine-to-machine (M2M) communication will allow UK manufacturers to be more competitive and innovative – goals that are essential for economic prosperity,” Charlie noted.

Forcam pioneered ‘Smart Factory’ technology in Germany. CEO, Franz Gruber, a former executive at enterprise resource planning (ERP) company SAP, explained “This is not just a management tool, but a system and a philosophy that the whole company – workers, supervisors and managers – will use to build more competitive, productive and profitable enterprises. Given intense challenges from developing countries this has a crucial role for the viability of factories in advanced economies.”

The latest Factory Framework innovation, Release 5, works in real time to gather and present context and role-relevant information to mangers, supervisors and shop floor technicians. This version of Factory Framework embraces big data, using complex event processing, in-memory technology and the power of the cloud. The German government has recognised the technical and commercial importance of this development to manufacturing with an initiative to encourage industry to integrate shop-floor processes to achieve greater efficiency and competitiveness – Industry 4.

Companies that saw an initial surge in output and boost to quality are continuing to use the system within their continuous improvement programmes (CIP) to achieve still higher year-on-year productivity. There are other advantages. Product yield and quality are improved because the tighter control loop means more rapid remediation of problems. Innovation and new product development cycles are reduced and production of small batch and bespoke products becomes viable. In large companies networking the supply chain makes for better integration between company owned plants and outside supply partners, even when these are on different continents.

“The internet-of-things means far more than your fridge re-ordering the tomatoes or controlling the central heating from your smart phone. This is a real revolution for manufacturing offering massive benefits for those that get on board,” Charles Walker concluded.


More Information

United Kingdom
Charles Walker, UK Account Manager, Tel. 01606 833 837
E-mail: info@forcam.co.uk Web: http://www.forcam.com
FORCAM UK, 6.1 Verity Court, Pochin Way, Middlewich, Cheshire, CW12 0GW

Germany
Vincent Post, Manger International Marketing & PR, Tel. + 49(0)7541/39908 – 826
E-mail: info@forcam.de Web: www.forcam.com
FORCAM GmbH, Banhofplatz 1, D-88045 – Friedrichshafen, Germany

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