Industry 4.0 - digital transformation for engineers

Who doesn't know this? The term Industry 4.0 is used on almost every advertising poster in the technology sector. The use of this term has already become very inflationary. Even though Industry 4.0 is a trend that will certainly revolutionize many industrial processes in the next 5 years or so, many people do not know what it is all about. A somewhat clearer understanding of the subject matter would do well to grasp the extent of this development.

But first of all, the question: What is Industry 4.0?

The term Industry 4.0 comes from the same-named project for the German government's high-tech strategy. The aim is to link industrial manufacturing with modern information and communications systems. So far so good. But this was also propagated in the past. What is new now?

If you look at the counterpart to the terminology from the USA, the term Industry 4.0 becomes a little easier to understand in context. There, it is more commonly referred to as the "Internet of Things" or IoT for short. This is intended to express the fact that all things can be networked with each other in the digital network. The purpose behind this is a very close dovetailing of process flows through targeted information exchange for the control of individual functional modules within a holistic semi-autonomous process chain.

Industry 4.0 using a simple example

In a private environment, a small process chain can be a washing machine that communicates via WLAN that the laundry will soon be ready and can be processed further for drying. In a modern, fully networked smart home, this washing machine is connected to the home network via the W-LAN module. Thus, it can transmit its status to anywhere on the globe. The user can ultimately be notified on his or her cell phone that the laundry is done. Whether this effort is actually sensible and useful in a smart home remains to be seen.

In the industrial environment, the interrelationships are somewhat more complex, but at the core they can be traced back to the same basic theme: Holistic networking and dovetailing of processes. Using the example of a service center, a robot system in a production plant can detect an oil leak via its networked sensors and report this to the service center's data center via the remote maintenance system. Based on intelligent logic, this system automatically brings forward the maintenance interval for this system, avoiding follow-up costs due to malfunctions in the overall system. But this is also already possible today with the existing systems. What are the characteristics of Industry 4.0?

Core features of Industry 4.0 - Digital Transformation

Thus, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrie 4.0 merge seamlessly. Four characteristics are crucial and in their combination an essential part of Industrie 4.0:

1) Networking of the systems. In the example, this is the digital data transmission between the sensor and the service center.

2) Communication of the systems. In the example above, a defined interface is used for information evaluation.

3) Integrated logic. The data center can recognize the problem based on the stored logic: Leak present, system shutdown is likely.

4) Autonomous action. The data center shortens the time interval for the next maintenance and fixes the problem.

Today's IT systems are - each on its own - basically capable of implementing these functions individually. However, the totality of these individual systems results in a highly heterogeneous structure of different systems, including interfaces and communication protocols. Merely bringing together the individual function modules via the defined interfaces and evaluating the information via suitable logic and downstream decision-making represents a major technical challenge.

Exploding data volumes

This consolidation inevitably generates large volumes of data that need to be stored, evaluated, and processed. The management of these individual tasks represents digital transformation in its entirety. Here, the question is no longer WHETHER this will be realized in the companies in the area of discrete manufacturing, but WHEN and HOW. It is also clear that the companies that take care of this digital transformation and the topic of Industry 4.0 at an early stage will be in a better position in the competitive environment.

In this context, however, it should also be mentioned that this topic environment does not have to be significant in full depth for every company.

In principle, the importance of IT in companies will increase significantly more in the future than is already the case today. Data acquisition and data evaluation, aggregation of data, provision, and networking, and homogenization of global systems are just a few of the IT topics in the industrial environment.

Engineering and Industry 4.0

For engineering, the creation of a uniform database from many individual sources for the purpose of the rapid evaluation is a very important component. One should always be able to keep track of the relevant data. However, this is not easy.

Whereas in the past a medium-sized company in the mechanical engineering sector had a data repository on a data server with approx. 20,000 to 30,000 3D objects as CAD models, today there are 200,000 to 300,000 CAD models plus drawing derivations and more at one company location alone. The entire manufacturing data from the product development process must also be added here. The trend is growing rapidly, and the flood of data is increasing more and more.

Networking

The intensive networking of companies with each other in business cooperation, the integration of development partners into processes, the automation of procurement processes, and the stronger networking of material flow systems lead to an increase in the complexity of all control and monitoring functions. Despite all the imponderables, this transformation offers incredible potential that can certainly be exploited. This requires an expansion of competence and know-how in the companies. It is also necessary to gain the insight that these topics will have to be dealt with more intensively in the future in order to ultimately remain competitive.

Communication and information evaluation

The additional networking of the many individual systems requires downstream, intelligent methods to perform targeted evaluations from the information flows. Thus, all information from the different data sources should be brought to a uniform level - transformed - in order to realize a systematic and automated check.

Integrated logic for autonomous decision

This aspect is an essential point within Industrie 4.0 because the user alone is not able to evaluate the flood of data to derive a quick decision. The integrated logic in autonomous systems offers this scaling opportunity to make a multitude of decisions and trigger targeted actions while remaining networked with its environment. In this way, the stream of information processing and decision-making never stops. Decision streams are derived from the information streams.

Key factor: complexity reduction

Complexity reduction in control and application is required at the few interfaces where the human component must interact. Thus, complexity reduction in application development to evaluate data streams is an essential component for the effective use of this technology. Maximized Data - Minimized Complexity. This can only be achieved by fully understanding all the processes involved.

Key factor: Data visualization

In connection with the reduction of complexity, efficient data visualization plays a very important role in the entire process flow. The plausibility of correlations, the comprehension of interactions, and the understanding of the overall situation can only be achieved for a human being through a clear visualization of the data and results. In the future, there will be new methods of presenting data and information. In the not-too-distant future, users will not only sit in front of a monitor but wear data glasses. Information will be recorded in virtual environments. The 2D visualization of information on a screen will soon be antiquated.

Ultimately, digital continuity leads to greater efficiency and more agility, in the hope that humans will not eventually make themselves superfluous.