Recent years have seen significant growth in industrial automation. Demand for high productivity and uptime means machines must be turn on more quickly and stay on for longer. Scaling operations must be faster than ever, too. All of this requires smart forms of industrial automation.
Connor Doherty | Director of industrial automation • DigiKey
New forms of industrial automation need cloud connectivity, unfettered data access, and the ability to remotely manage factories. Suppliers are helping machine builders include these features with cutting-edge robotics, sensors, edge computing, and other technologies with IoT capabilities.
In an automation environment, robots improve repetitive tasks, precision, consistency and uptime across processes. They remove inconsistent movements and improve safety in hazardous environments. Robots and cobots also elevate workforces to assume roles to help managers scale and adjust outputs.
Solutions for robotic workcells
Whether in maintenance and repairing or programming and configuring machines, automation also plays an important role in supporting labor shortages. As demand grows faster than the workforce, automation enables manufacturers to scale without solely relying on labor availability. That doesn’t mean manufacturers rely completely on robots without skilled labor because robotic systems still need maintenance. Nothing is completely autonomous. Manufacturers still need people working alongside machines, but in a re-envisioned way that supports consistent output and reduced training overhead.
The future of industrial automation is smart as well as agile and safe. DigiKey is committed to bridging the gap between innovation and execution to make it easier for design engineers to automate smarter, faster, and safer.
The enclosed workstations that combine robots and other tools known as robotic workcells let manufacturers build safer and more efficient systems — plus (whether it’s assembly, welding, inspection or material handling) precision execution of repetitive tasks.
Such workcells also improve manufacturing consistency. For example, if a process error occurs and a batch is incorrect, reviewing the data and tracing it back to a specific lot, robot or time of day can pinpoint what changed in the environment. Tracing back errors, identifying what changed in the data, and preventing its recurrence allows for added efficiencies and visibility.
In some cases, complementary technologies impart workcells with useful capabilities. For example, suppliers such as Eaton are helping advance robotic cells with intelligent power management and circuit protection for safe and reliable automation. Eaton distributed controls and smart circuit breakers let manufacturers perform predictive maintenance and realtime diagnostics to reduce unplanned downtime and improve plant safety.
Advanced sensing for traceability
Advanced sensor technologies, data acquisition systems, and communication protocols are also shaping the future of smart automation. Optical, infrared, inductive, LiDAR, and ultrasonic technologies are all helping manufacturers better understand factory-floor environments in realtime. Manufacturers are mixing solutions that measure and monitor performance, accuracy, and range to instantaneously capture everything happening. For example, SICK smart sensors and vision systems are flexible and traceable, especially in high-speed and collaborative environments.
Safety-sensing technologies such as light curtains, emergency stops, and safe motion control allow protected harm-free interactions with equipment and the surrounding environment. For example, these technologies might enable the setting of a warning zone to alert workers approaching a hazardous area before they get too close. That way, workers won’t accidentally enter hazardous areas, trip safety devices, or cause machine shutdowns.
Recent advances in industrial automation can offer quality customization and numerous configurations more efficiently and effectively without the strain of a specialized and dedicated labor force.
Coming trends in industrial automation
The future of smarter industrial automation will build on some exciting trends.
Edge computing: AI will continue to move closer to the source, working even nearer to sensors and other machines. Especially for vision systems, the closeness between AI and the source improves the ability to detect what is actually happening and act at the source, essentially eliminating the current delays of data going to a control unit for processing and then sending analysis back to the source.
Wireless connectivity: Advances in IIoT will let manufacturers identify and correct problems and inefficiencies sooner to save time and money. The improvements in connections between sensor data, machine-to-machine communication, and automation technologies provide machine learning technologies with more accurate data to optimize and streamline industrial processes. Coming years could bring significantly more physical protocols from leaders in industrial Ethernet standards for automation technology such as PROFINET and Modbus along with open scalable Ethernet-based solutions such as single-pair ethernet (SPE). Advances in protocols will continue to reduce complexity and cost, enabling these sensors and communication devices to go beyond existing borders.
The growing demand for smart automation isn’t slowing down. Across the industry, there’s heightened interest in e-commerce distribution partners. Engineers, designers and manufacturers are increasingly opting to shop for automation products and cutting-edge technologies from website that offer everything needed often with delivery in as little as 24 hours.
Safety-integrated automation: It’s easy to quickly scale operations when the return on investment justifies new machines. However, the gains made by rapidly scaling can disappear if there are any safety issues. The practice of integrating safety automation equipment alongside the rest of the automation in realtime (not after the fact) is increasingly common.
High-mix low-volume (HMLV) manufacturing: The industry seems poised to have a full-circle moment with trend-flexible modular systems. The system that fell out of favor when Henry Ford was trying to balance his automobile assembly lines is now supported by adopting increased amounts of automation. Recent advances in industrial automation can offer quality customization and numerous configurations more efficiently and effectively without the strain of a specialized and dedicated labor force.
Digital twins: The integration of simulation-driven design with machine learning and data analytics allows engineers to test, refine, and suitable designs before they are physically realized or when they are in operation and positioned to benefit from continuous optimization. Digital twins can significantly improve design quality, cost and even safety and cybersecurity. Some suppliers themselves use digital twins to constantly monitor the flow in their product-distribution centers. Simulated design around packaging, orders and distribution gives the team insight into where hiccups might be occurring so we can reduce bottlenecks and boost performance in realtime.
DigiKey | digikey.com/automation
Connor Doherty is the director of industrial automation at DigiKey. DigiKey is both the leader and continuous innovator in the high service distribution of electronic components and automation products worldwide, providing more than 16.5M components from more than 3,000 name-brand manufacturers.
Filed Under: Industrial automation, AUTOMATION, Uncategorized
