Manufacturing the Future
It’s no secret that the industrial revolution was directly born from the development of specialized machinery, thus providing the means of manufacturing a new path in history. Industrialization marked a societal shift through the development of these new systems, which also opened new ways of doing business. The principles and practices from these transformations continue to have a long-lasting ripple effect on the world today. It may come as a surprise that America manufactures more today than we ever have before in the country’s history. The advancements in manufacturing have spurred the next era of global growth and innovation. As a local manufacturer for the past 20 years in Boulder, Colorado, FreeWave has a unique understanding of how producing goods locally actually improves the bottom line, as compared to sending the work offshore. The Manufacturer is Evolving According to a major report from the McKinsey Global Institute, manufacturing continues to evolve in many ways. Some of the key findings to note were: Manufacturing’s role is changing. The way it contributes to the economy shifts as nations mature: in today’s advanced economies, manufacturing promotes innovation, productivity, and trade more than growth and employment. In these countries, manufacturing also has begun to consume more services and to rely more heavily on them to operate. Manufacturing is not monolithic. It is a diverse sector with five distinct groups of industries, each with specific drivers of success. Manufacturing is entering a dynamic new phase. As a new global consuming class emerges in developing nations, and innovations spark additional demand, global manufacturers will have substantial new opportunities—but in a much more uncertain environment. The report also highlights two very critical priorities for the future: “Companies have to build their R&D capabilities, as well as expertise in data analytics and product design. They will need qualified, computer-savvy factory workers and agile managers for complex global supply chains. In addition to supporting ongoing efforts to improve public education—particularly the teaching of math and analytical skills—policy makers must work with industry and educational institutions to ensure that skills learned in school fit the needs of employers.” IoT and Smart Manufacturing Whether it’s called smart manufacturing, Industry 4.0 or Industrial IoT, even the casual observer of the industrial landscape can see how manufacturing is changing. Being driven by new technologies and rapidly evolving customer demands manufacturers have needed to respond with mass customization – the concept of building flexibility into mass production. Through the adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT), factory and plant settings are becoming more outfitted with advanced instrumentation and being interconnected for a holistic approach to the modern assembly line. IoT provides the ability to gain valuable data off of all the “things” along the manufacturing process. From the condition of assets and equipment to quality and yield metrics, IoT provides live, real-time data from the manufacturing environment to our fingertips. In addition, new data sets (and perhaps more importantly data analytics) are changing the way we see our machines, our processes and our business operations. Analytics can identify patterns in the data, model behaviors of equipment, and predict failures based on a variety of variables that exist in manufacturing. As more factories and equipment are instrumented with the IoT, data volume will only grow larger. In Closing America is still making plenty of “things” and thanks to the latest advancements in technology, is still the leader in many of its fields of expertise. Below is a throwback video from PBS to remind us how the manufacturing sector continues to produce not just products, but ingenuity. Video courtesy of PBS.org
Utilities: Where Data Flows Like Water at the Speed of Light
(Image courtesy Flickr Creative Commons) More than a decade ago, the choices were few to address the needs of data gathering and recording. Water and wastewater utilities, for example, had to be able to use a ‘one size fits all’ unit with set parameters and make their systems adaptable to the technology of the day. Since then, many municipal water systems, such as those in Southern Utah, have had to broaden the area from which they gather, use, and reclaim water. Most growing areas are even facing the dilemma of higher demands on services while trying to stay within shrinking budgets and manpower cutbacks. This is because in the past, many viewed electronic data gathering as a ‘want’ instead of a ‘need’ until now. As with any limited resource, scarcity often drives innovation as people are tasked to do more with less. Such is the current state and convergence of water/wastewater utilities and the Internet of Things (IoT) – an emerging paradigm in which more data and information can be gathered and acted upon during the processes of collecting, treating, monitoring, and distributing water. With the unprecedented demand for cities and municipalities to maximize water resource allocation, local government officials began implementing smarter methods to address the challenges of today and hurdle the potential obstacles in the future. By using new technology in the form of sensors, IoT networking and data analytics, city officials, local citizens, and businesses are now more accurately predicting everything from crop yields to at-home water conservation. This technological evolution is part of a much larger undertaking that has both garnered international attention and prompted action all the way to the Federal level of the United States government. Smart Cities Initiative Connected In response to the new Smart Cities Initiatives, cities around the country are beginning to take advantage of the $160+ million in Federal research and technical collaborations to help their local communities tackle key challenges such as lessening traffic congestion, reducing crime, fostering economic growth, creating jobs, managing the effects of a changing climate, and improving the delivery of city services and quality of life. According to a White House fact sheet on Smart Cities, emerging technologies have “created the potential for an ‘Internet of Things,’ a ubiquitous network of connected devices, smart sensors, and big data analytics. The United States has the opportunity to be a global leader in this field, and cities represent strong potential test beds for development and deployment of IoT applications.” Given the growth of these highly connected networks, Smart Cities are using wireless communication technologies to build critical infrastructure and support public services. According to the research firm Gartner, an estimated 1.1 billion connected things were used by Smart Cities in 2015, with this total rising to 9.7 billion by 2020. What Is on the Horizon for Utilities? As Smart Cities initiatives continue grabbing headlines and captivating imaginations, public utilities and their customers have the most to gain in the short term. Coordination and collaboration amongst a cities’ local government, utility operators, researchers, and technology vendors is key to bringing these “smart initiatives” to light. For example, Orlando, Florida was a destination of choice for many involved in these smart city transformations, as DistribuTECH 2016 brought approximately 12,000 people together from more than 60 countries across the globe to keep the focus on the future of electric power delivery and a smart utilities infrastructure.