The success of IoT and AI in manufacturing: Why should you move to NoCode

Nowadays, manufacturing is no longer strictly about making physical products. Shifts in consumer demand, the nature of products, production economics, and the economics of the supply chain have led to a radical change in the way companies operate.

According to the report made by specialists of Deloitte in 2020, 86% of manufacturers in the US state that the main driver of competition by 2025 will be smart factories.

Manufacturers looking to capture growth and protect long-term profitability should embrace digital capabilities from corporate functions to the factory floor. Smart factories, including greenfield and brownfield investments for many manufacturers, are viewed as one of the keys to driving competitiveness. More organisations are making progress and seeing results from more connected, reliable, efficient, and predictive processes at the plant. According to a 2022 report by Deloitte, in 2022, many of manufacturing executives surveyed expect further increases in operational efficiency from investments in the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) that connect machines and automate processes.

The emergence of technologically enabled products such as activity trackers is one of the facets of an emerging transition in physical goods. According to a 2015 study by Deloitte, in the near future, most products will become “smart”, while becoming a part of the Internet of Things (IoT). The general expansion of sensors, connectivity, and electronics will extend the digital infrastructure to encompass previously analog tasks, processes, and machine operations.

Deloittes 2022 manufacturing industry outlook states that through 2025, investment in artificial intelligence technologies is predicted to expand at a compound annual growth rate of more than 20%. Discrete manufacturing is predicted to be one of the top three industries to invest the most in AI, especially for quality control and automated preventive maintenance applications.

The strategic significance of smart factories cannot be overstated. Smart factory technologies that combine capabilities in the industrial internet of things (IIoT), cloud and edge computing, robotic process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, vision systems, and augmented and virtual reality systems, among others, consistently show improvements in cost, throughput, quality, safety, and revenue growth.

It is the fusion of humans and technology that makes a smart factory smart. IoT and cloud and edge computing have led to the creation and aggregation of data and information. Research made by Deloitte 2020 has shown that leaders prioritise investing in IoT, AI, cloud, and analytics above other technologies. These technologies form the foundation of organisations that are not only connected but also collect, analyse, and use data to drive decisions.

All manufacturing industries are seeing the rise of smart and connected products. For example, according to Harvard Business Review 2014, in heavy machinery, Schindler’s PORT Technology reduces elevator wait times by as much as 50% by forecasting elevator demand patterns, calculating the fastest time to the desired location, and assigning the appropriate elevator to move passengers quickly. ABB's smart grid technology in the energy sector enables utilities to evaluate massive volumes of real-time data across a wide spectrum of generating, transforming, and distributing equipment, such as temperature changes in transformers and secondary substations. This informs utility control centres of potential overload circumstances, allowing adjustments to be made to avoid blackouts before they happen. In consumer goods, some products of ceiling fans can sense and engage automatically when a person enters a room, regulate speed on the basis of temperature and humidity, recognize individual user preferences and adjust accordingly.

In a 2015 survey made by Deloitte, nearly 75 percent of executives indicated that their companies were exploring or adopting some form of IoT solution, with most seeing integrating IoT into the main business as necessary to remain competitive. Taking into consideration that these days technological improvements are implemented rapidly, the percentage of companies adopting IoT solutions should rise within the upcoming years.

Advanced analytics powered by AI enables firms to interpret all of the data from their newly illuminated processes and handle data loads as well as vital, previously unknown data correlations that a human can't handle at scale.

AI can be deployed in a variety of ways throughout the facility, for example, robots capable of navigating and learning from the types of uneven or unpredictable configurations that can be found in industrial facilities as well as capable of emulating human vision and hearing for quality sensing and asset health prediction. It can drive predictive maintenance, interactively route inputs and other materials throughout the facility, and assess, sense, and proactively respond to circumstances across the broad scope of the smart factory’s operations in a control tower, among other abilities. Through the use of digital twins and digital threads, AI may also be utilised to monitor and optimise the performance of products and processes. Digital twins allow companies to capture value by detecting potential issues sooner, optimising plant capacity, and predicting outcomes of various scenarios. Likewise, AI can be deployed in the digital thread, creating a digital record of the life cycle of products themselves.

So, how can Trilleco support your manufacturing business in the path of innovation and sustainability? With the assistance of our NoCode platforms, edge devices, and gateways we will help your business extract real time, machine-level energy data and transform the sustainability footprint of the company. With the connected system of energy sources, the tracking of carbon emission levels becomes easier than ever before. You are now able to connect electrical, mechanical, transportation, and logistic sources onto a single dashboard. We will help you create a 3D replica of your plant which can be used in AR, VR, and MR platforms or even on your web and mobile applications providing real-time insights, monitoring, controlling, and actioning of smart devices and processes in your company. This way you will have control over the plants’ sustainability impact. What is more, maximise efficiency by collecting key machine data via sensors, add predictive analytics with our no-code machine learning and AI tools to assess future risks, and optimise realtime and remote physical maintenance activities with our augmented reality solution.

The value that can be derived from the deployment of AI capabilities can be significant. According to Deloitte 2020, some leaders reported double-digit percentage improvements in production processes, machine utilisation, and throughput from the deployment of AI-driven capabilities.

Our IIoT NoCode platform that stitches together sensor-based data with legacy systems and newer technologies holds tremendous promise for those in manufacturing. With the help of NoCode platforms, Internet of things, artificial intelligence, and machine learning companies can thrive like they have never before. When reaching sustainability and optimising efficiency, long-term solutions must be considered. At Trilleco we maximise your business outcomes. Reach out to us via Email or on LinkedIn.