Highlights

  • Maximize Revenue
  • Maximize Asset Efficiency, Performance & Optimization
  • Enhance Service Efficiency
  • Reduce Downtime and Improve Customer Satisfaction
  • Improve Enterprise Operational Intelligence
  • Increase Digital Workforce Productivity
  • Scalable Production Management

Problem 1:Visibility into machine performance is limited - When only a select few have visibility into plant floor operations, manufacturers can struggle to maintain optimal overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and have limited ability to measure and improve key performance indicators (KPIs). Observation-based monitoring also makes it difficult for manufacturers to optimize scheduling, quality, and productivity. Moreover, Work instructions are paper based, hard to locate and lacking in context.

Solution:Real-time production performance monitoring by Minion EMS helps manufacturers identify issues in real-time so they can be addressed before OEE is impacted. With better visibility into machine health and processes, you can ensure your operators are making speedier, better-informed decisions on the plant floor.

Potential: Up to 20% decrease in downtime

Problem 2: Today’s service professionals are under pressure to improve service - often with limited resources, inefficient, reactive strategies and longer service call time-to-resolution which blocks opportunities for potential savings.

Solution: Minion EMS allows service professionals to resolve issues remotely, saving on truck roll costs, improving first-time-fix rates, and reducing overall time-for-service.

Potential: Up to 35% savings in operational costs

Introduction

Industry 4.0 is the application of technology to digitally transform how industrial companies operate. These technologies include the industrial IoT, automation and robotics, simulation, additive manufacturing, and analytics. Industry 4.0 is driven by a need to boost efficiency, become more agile to respond to market unpredictability, improve quality, and to enable new business models. As we know, Energy availability and reliability are not just important for critical energy buildings, manufacturing processes and all the other mission-critical operations in the scope of Industry 4.0. They are in fact an essential part of it. Or in other words, without energy management overall at the centre of Industry 4.0 there is no Industry 4.0

To gain the benefit of Industry 4.0, though, it is prerequisite to have an in-depth understanding of observed processes and to identify parameters which are critical to the energy and productivity performance of such. for example, Data from sensors that measure heat and vibration can predict an impending bearing failure days or weeks in advance, compare the performance data of similar machines for choosing the efficient one for manufacturing while scheduling maintenance for inefficient ones. With remote monitoring, a potentially dangerous malfunction in a production machine can be detected, thus shutting down other equipment that could be damaged and directing maintenance staff to the problem could be achieved.

Minion EMS Industry 4.0 Solution

The Minion Energy Management System offers Industry 4.0 kit as a way to monitor and control electrical equipment based on the state of efficiency it might be in. In order to achieve efficient operation in industries, it is essential to monitor the health of the equipment running, and any anomaly must be reported for swift action and prevent any hardware failure.

Minion Industry 4.0 kit is a plug & play wireless device packaged depending on the use cases with industry standard sensors like Temperature Sensor, Humidity Sensor, Vibration Sensor, Sound Sensor, Pressure Sensor, Gas Sensor, Dust Sensor, Weight Sensor, Level Sensor, Proximity Sensor, Infrared Sensor, Acoustic Sensor, Accelerometer, Speed Sensor, Position Sensor, Air Bubble detector, Liquid Level switch, Magnetic Field Sensor, LVDT Position Sensor, etc along with supporting 3rd party sensor integrations. The Industry 4.0 Kit is RF enabled to communicate back and forth with Minion EMS to provide real time equipment’s health data and perform any actionable instruction critical to the equipment. It ensures that no hardware breakdown or failure occurs and there is minimal down time to increase overall production and efficiency. The Minion 4.0 kit supporting industry leading protocols enables easy integration and swift deployment. The data collected by the Kit also feeds NILM to provide a detailed consumption report and equipment efficiency and health status.

With the Minion Industry 4.0 kit in place, the Minion EMS leveraging its AI practice of diagnostic analytics analyses the energy signature to detect any anomaly in the working of the device and by implementing its second AI practice i.e., the prescriptive analytics, recommends the appropriate action in order to help operate the equipment to run efficiently. Also, the EMS supports OPC-UA for enabling the equipment to communicate with each other (M2M Communication). The Minion 4.0 kit is RF enabled and can control the turning ON/OFF of the equipment in place.

Minion EMS can able to communicate with KNX switches (such as CISCO IE 6000, ABB HBA, GEWISS, SIEMENS BAC), Modbus switches, Smart BLE based sensors/switches. EMS supports BACnet and OpenTherm protocols to communicate and control the connected HVAC systems remotely along with the support of EEBUS for connecting Industry 4.0 with Smart Grid to enable the utility to meet the demand of Industry energy consumption. EMS also has a Modbus port which allows the data collected by it to be communicated with any 3rd party gateway, data logger via the Modbus itself. This allows swift integration with already existing frameworks.

With monitoring industrial equipment using sensors and leveraging Industrial IoT, we can increase reliability and efficiency, and to gain other operating benefits, such as reduced maintenance and improved safety. Monitoring the operation of equipment in a manufacturing unit, we can determine the power consumed by it which helps us optimize the costs as we get a better insight into manufacturing expenditures. Also, energy management in Industry plays a key role in savings as any unnecessary equipment still connected to the supply can be disconnected remotely.

Moreover, multiple equipment forming a chain of processes can communicate with each other and if any fault occurs in one machine which might affect the smooth flow of operations, it can communicate with the rest of the machines to stop the operation if needed for better workflow management. Deploying sensors, such as acoustic monitoring of steam traps, condition monitoring of pumps, and heat exchanger performance, all wirelessly connected to cost-effective Minion Energy Management Solution which does data acquisition and analytics systems to provide savings.

Beyond Efficiency, Industries can deliver personalized offering to customers with Minion EMS

Manufacturers are at crossroads. Many manufacturers are in an increasingly competitive environment where products are commoditized and product margins are shrinking. They recognize a need to increase customer revenue and deliver additional value with each interaction. In this environment, manufacturers have begun to look to service to deliver additional customer value, revenue streams, and efficiency. This evolution requires a digital transformation to tap into the wealth of insights from products and equipment through the Internet of Things to turn this data into new actions, offerings, and improved future products. What if Minion EMS & Industry 4.0 kit is in-built / along with the product / equipment / machinery sold?

Minion EMS explores the wealth of data captured from connected products and equipment and leverages this insight across the organization to improve both products and service, with the ultimate goal of an optimized customer experience, increased revenue, and better efficiencies.

Customers are demanding better service, the C-suite is expecting increased profits, and the technology exists to tap into real-time data to connect teams across the organization. Minion EMS data is the enabler of this transformation, but this investment will look different from others as it is part of a transformation journey that touches the entire organization. Four specific areas highlight the promise of the technology and deliver value to customers, which help differentiate, drive new revenue opportunities, and enhance the service and products offerings. These four opportunities that leverage IoT data and artificial intelligence provide another framework around the value of connected products: monitor, predict, create, and innovate.

Remote Service - Minion EMS allows manufacturers a view into products and equipment once they have left the manufacturing line or the design room. For many manufacturers who sell products through a dealer channel, without Minion EMS or equivalent they would lose all sight of the product until there was a warranty claim or recall. Minion EMS ensures that manufacturers can monitor equipment and gain line of sight of products in real time or near real time. With Minion EMS, manufacturers can self-diagnose issues in advance and trigger a service intervention to avoid unplanned downtime of the equipment / product. One avenue to increase customer value is to ensure that if an asset or a piece of equipment is about to fail, the manufacturer or service organization can respond quickly if not proactively. Monitoring the assets with Minion EMS allows for this level of service to be offered to the customer.

Predictive Maintenance - The battle for service organizations and manufacturers to move from reactive service delivery models to proactive and predictive models has been long standing. It has been highlighted that only 34.7% of manufacturers today characterize themselves as being able to focus on preventative maintenance. This hurdle for the predictive or preventive services rises due to the increased number of disconnected products in the installed base. With Minion EMS both new and old equipment & products can be connected, so as the end of life nears for older products in the field, the manufacturers are equipped with the ability to foresee the events of failures and hence offer optimized service resolution models.

Connected Customer Value - Minion EMS with its 5 ai practices have the ability to create new service offerings for customers, which would otherwise be impossible for a manufacturer to deliver consistently, if at all - Performance based service products, Upsell/Customized product offerings and warranty management.

Continuous Engineering & Innovation - Historically, manufacturers siloed the product and service teams. Product design and manufacturing focused on the product up to and until the point the product was shipped or sold to a customer. The engineering team had little visibility into how customers used the products, what types of issues needed to be resolved by the service team, or why a customer didn't buy other products. The one instance that the engineering team received product or equipment information after a product was sold was if there was a defect or recall.

Manufacturers can capture more real-time data from products on customer sites and service interactions with the help of Minion EMS, that information can and should be fed back to the rest of the organization, namely the engineering team. One of the more impactful opportunities for manufacturers is making Minion EMS and service data available to engineering to seed improvements in both current and future products. Without a connection to this data, engineering will continue to design and manufacture products in a silo and, possibly, fail to tap into customer preferences or service insights.

Organizations have an unprecedented opportunity to leverage connected products and services as a key pillar of their digital journey. Having the proper technology architecture in place to support that strategy, however, is vital to its success. There are three things to consider,

  1. how to connect to the things in a scalable way:
    Connected service strategies require connected products, so the first step is to consider how your organization will get the serviceable assets connected to the internet. Minion EMS with the edge intelligence enables both newer and older assets to connect to the internet along with various industry standard protocol translation layers in place to begin sending data to the cloud in a scalable & secured way.
  2. how data analysis supports a more proactive service execution model:
    Once assets transmit its sensor value data to the cloud from Minion EMS, it is of little use simply sitting in a database. Therefore, the next key aspect that should be considered is data analysis — specifically, the right kinds of analytics to support the goals of the business. Minion EMS has a mix of 5 ai practices (Descriptive, NILM - Machine Learning, Diagnostic, Predictive and Prescriptive analytics) used for detecting patterns in real-time data. It is this ability to know the combination of conditions in which an asset is likely to fail — and fire off an alert based on it — that will enable organizations to provide more predictive service. All of these insights are available over a cloud dashboard where from C-Suite to floor level workers are able to get insights, control the assets anywhere from the globe.
  3. how to leverage the insights gathered from IoT-connected devices to improve product and service strategies:
    Manufacturers who build and service equipment have an opportunity to leverage the insights generated from Minion EMS to improve their entire product development process. This includes everything from the initial requirements gathering process to change and configuration management to quality management. To do this, organizations must consider how they can create a seamless connection between the Minion EMS platform that is gathering the data from the equipment / product and the product life-cycle management solution that coordinates the engineering process of the equipment / product. Again, the Minion EMS plays a key role here, thereby helping the engineering team understand how an entire asset is performing in real time within various environmental constraints. The execution of a proactive or predictive service model has been integrated in the Minion EMS system, which is generating the real-time insights and can translate to 3rd party business systems via API access, like field service or service parts applications, that generate the work orders for field technicians. The service technician needs to understand how the asset is functioning as a whole, so that he/she will need to leverage and have access to equipment / product data from Minion EMS to understand the current state of the asset. This insight will also enable more accurate diagnosis of an issue prior to a visit being scheduled, parts being requested, or an asset failing in the first place. One other architectural concept an organization should evaluate in the context of predictive and proactive service is whether the system has been built in an eventdriven way. This allows a given event to trigger a next action. For example, an event could be indicating a state rising due to a machine failure to which the immediate action should be to initiate a service request.

“Initially the Minion EMS had the use case of increasing process efficiencies, improving the product quality, and moreover monitoring performance of assets. This benefit is still pertinent, but manufacturers must go beyond this passive use to tap into the rich insights of Minion EMS to transform the offerings for customers. Minion EMS enables manufacturers to have a direct view into customer behaviour, product performance, and the chasm between capacity and value-added services. Knowing when a machine will fail or why it will degrade inperformance transcends being just another data point when manufacturers intervene delivering service outcomes to avoid that disruption. “

Use Cases

Mining:

By using the data from sensors in its equipment, an African gold mine identified a problem with the oxygen levels during leaching. Once fixed, they were able to increase their yield by 3.7%, which saved them $20 million annually.

Optimize logistics and supply chains: A connected supply chain can adjust and accommodate when new information is presented. If a weather delay ties up a shipment, a connected system can proactively adjust to that reality and modify manufacturing priorities.

In a farm setting, data from humidity sensors can be combined with weather forecasts to optimize irrigation equipment and reduce water use.

Manufacturing:

A flooring & synthetic turf products company was struggling with such a huge amount of work order data that it tended to be difficult to better understand issues and equipment performance. They essentially needed to understand how the machines were performing at any time, using real-time data. Having Minion 4.0 equivalent Kit in place, they tapped into the factory’s real time floor analytics, allowing industrial sensors to provide insights, potentially improving production rate and compatibility among different units.

Minion Industry 4.0 equivalent Kit helped them lead the work order timeline which significantly increased the production rate. This in turn turned out to reduce energy consumption at the facility, resulting in overall cost savings.

Energy:

A wind energy company was struggling with its existing manufacturing process, which required its workers to ensemble critical flow of steps into a consolidated guide. Their manufacturing process was so detail specific that their machines had to be input with minute instructions which existed in the consolidated guide. With the company staying relevant in the market by integrating new technologies they constantly had to revise the guide to meet the latest demands in case of a technological upgrade and henceforth implementing best practices. But having the updated guide was not enough as it was cumbersome for workers from different units, as they had to go through a huge number of instructions which wasn't even relevant to their particular job function, impacting their productivity.

Having Minion Industry 4.0 equivalent Kit integrated the company equipped the workers with the detailed information they needed to complete the tasks based on the policies which closely followed the updated guidelines, which included machine specific workflow information and best suited workrate and condition in a single dashboard. This had a significant impact on the safety and training time as it not only provided the worker with the task at hand, but also the ideal way to implement it.

Electrical:

A Motors/Generators company offering configurable products had a challenge of maintaining stocked product and the flow/integrity of one-off orders. It usually took them 10-12 months for building a product that would be sold once and often in the middle of the process one functional unit would end up not being able to complete the task sparking disagreements between functional units. The problem arose because the engineering, manufacturing and sales teams were operating in different silos resulting in disagreements between departments and hence meant more time to market and often errors. With Minion 4.0 equivalent kit, the company was able to centralize the configuration rules by creating policies into a single dashboard overlooked by the ERP, PLM and sales teams. With these policies, a feature is authorized and created once then saved in existing policies and acts as a reference for all the functional units to agree upon. These policies enlighten the system's capability and functionality and helps the sales team to promise customers only what is achievable by the system. With centralized policies created based on the data, a customer is promised an accurate and achievable quote the very first time. They experienced minimal order errors and achieved a better understanding between engineering and sales, as Engineering no longer wastes time designing a product that was impossible in the first place and likewise the sales no longer have to call the customer saying that the order will now be delayed.

Energy Saving Potential:
  • Up to 45% of the energy can be saved from the loads
  • Up to 12% reduction in operational costs
  • Up to 92% first time fix rate
  • Up to 60% increase in operator productivity
  • Up to 50% reduction in scrap
  • Up to 75% reduction in technician on-site time
  • Up to 20% reduction in cost of quality