IoT in manufacturing floor
Deploying IoT in manufacturing shop floor – The yearly inventory and spare stock take is a week-long exercise, which involves matching production trolleys, bins, and racks for procurement, production, and finished goods. Many inspectors wished they had an efficient group inventory tracking solution that helped reduce the stocktake time so that our production is not stalled during this annual activity, which helps in improved throughput and lower cost in production management. Some factories located globally also face the problem of equipment and inventory theft. Deploying facilities management solutions that give us alerts when something moves out of the factory or warehouse can help us save a lot of dollars, and reap the benefits of IoT solutions for manufacturing.
Internet of things, IoT in manufacturing
Indoor positioning systems can be used to track the movement and location of assets such as raw materials, work-in-progress inventory, finished goods, and equipment. This information can be used to optimize the layout of the production line, reduce search time for equipment and materials, and improve the flow of materials and products.
Indoor positioning systems can track the movement of employees, enabling production planners to optimize staffing levels, improve worker safety, and monitor productivity, apart from facilities management.
Indoor positioning systems can help to ensure quality control by tracking the location of products at various stages of production, and by detecting any errors or defects in the production process.
Indoor positioning systems can provide real-time information about the status of production processes, such as machine uptime, equipment usage, and inventory levels. This information can be used to make adjustments to the production process in real-time, improving efficiency and reducing waste.
An electronics manufacturing center has over 100 tools and spares inventory scattered over 20,000 sq meters of production area. They are at times clueless about where the essential tools are. If only we had technology that would help us easily locate these inventory items. We are sure our supervisors and shop floor managers will find a noticeable improvement in productivity, which means we will be able to ship out our products at a much higher rate and save costs, which can be passed on to our customers in these testing times. Preventive maintenance, repairs, remote monitoring etc can help us save and improve efficiencies by deploying IOT in manufacturing shop floor tracking, asset monitoring, and inventory tracking.
Role of IoT solutions for manufacturing
We are in the business of manufacturing high-end equipment for the semiconductor industry and our production shop floor spans an area of 30,000 sq. meters. It is difficult for us to the exact time it takes for equipment to move from one zone to the other. Ideally, a production zone performance system would be good to have so that we can draw matrices and devise performance rewards.
IoT dashboard in manufacturing
Ten years ago, they deployed over 300 analog temperature sensors on various equipment with localized dashboards. The group of 10 supervisors needs to spend time at each of these dashboards to understand variations in temperature, pressure, and humidity levels. We badly need a centralized digital dashboard that will provide instant alerts and notifications when critical parameters return abnormal values.
Lone worker safety in factories
Specialized contractors who visit our factory on a regular basis need lone worker tracking technology. They work in compliance, inspection, electrical, and certification departments. As part of workplace safety norms, it is critical that we ensure the wellness and production management safety of our long-term contractors, by monitoring their movement, defining danger zones, and prohibited areas, and tracking physical activities to avoid incidents such as electric shocks and falls from heights. We need to deploy a smart industry solution.
Call us, and speak to our experts to learn more about our ready-to-deploy, fully integrated solutions for deploying IOT in manufacturing floor tracking, locating, and monitoring on mesh network technology, an award-winning, massively scalable architecture.