Category

Manufacturing

Jan 12
Crystal Ball Predictions

Three Industrial Internet of Things Questions

By Internet of Things (IoT), Manufacturing 3 Comments

Three Industrial Internet of Things Questions for 2016

Q: The Industrial IoT. Are we finally past the hype?

Not even close. Still too much talk about billions of connected devices, although it’s not always clear what they are connected to and for what purpose. Certainly interesting IIoT implementation stories will continue to make headlines, but when scrutinized closely, most will be one-off M2M implementations: single-purpose applications that take effort to build and are difficult to scale and reuse.

Q: What’s needed to improve the maturity of the Industrial IoT space?

Read More

Dec 15

Knowledge Based Product Development

By Design Reuse, Innovation, Internet of Things (IoT), Manufacturing, PLM No Comments

Lack of ongoing insight into product operation and the interaction with users is a major contributor to the persistence of a knowledge gap that plagues many product organizations, reduces efficiency and stifles innovation.

What drives this knowledge gap? A number of general trends impact companies in most industry sectors and product types.

  • Technology complexity and, in particular, the increased reliance on complex embedded control software.
  • Elongated and fragmented supply chains that support global operations.
  • Meeting global markets demand results in lower volume of configuration-specific product instances.
  • Accelerated egress of an aging workforce from the workplace.

The impact of the growing knowledge gap is most recognized and frequently discussed in the context of equipment maintenance and repair, which is a knowledge intensive activity. Another area were closing the knowledge gap has significant benefits is engineering change management.

Organizations often speak about the need to collect and formalize “tribal knowledge” to close the gap between the knowledge needed to perform a complex takes or reach a decision, and the knowledge and experience the person performing this task has access to.

In a previous article I discussed the severe myopia that exists in many product companies: most engineering organizations lose sight of their products once they are sold or installed in the field. In some manufacturing companies this happens even earlier, during the transition to manufacturing engineering and before the product enters volume production. Once a product is in use, there is only a trickle of information in the form of service records and warranty claims. But many organizations dismiss critical maintenance and warranty information as merely operational and cost of doing business and aren’t leveraging its full potential.

Knowledge Based Product Development

Product organizations cannot have a true and complete view of a product and how customers are using it unless they can continue to observe it while it is in use. They must monitor and analyze products throughout their lifecycle, gauge their performance, quality and uptime, how users are interacting with the products, and how well they meet market expectations overall.

This rich multidisciplinary insight extends beyond design information. It includes multifaceted data from a variety of sources and disciplines and includes manufacturing, supply chain, filed operations and service and maintenance. The data can be aggregated from multiple sources, including real-time data such as IoT, maintenance record and customer experience.

The aggregation, classification and analysis of this data provides critical insight to embellish and enhance an organizational knowledge library for subsequent iterations of product design, manufacturing process engineering, and service planning.  reinforced by analytics, case-based reasoning (CBR), and similar tools to collect, analyze and vet information.

Product organizations cannot afford operating with blinds that prevent visibility to downstream processes. They should not ignore the value of information collected throughout the product lifecycle. They must establish knowledge processes, governed by PLM software, to maximize the utility and benefit of product lifecycle information.

(Photo: FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Nov 03
Elephant Monument for Champs-Élysées (Jean-Jacques Lequeu, 1758)

Design for IoT or Design by IoT?

By Internet of Things (IoT), Manufacturing, PLM No Comments

The Internet, mobile devices and cloud computing are drastically changing manufacturing. Software control systems embedded in smart devices and connected machines form a network of sensors and actuators that exchange information autonomously and can monitored and controlled online.

The potential impact of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industry 4.0 are undisputed. While industry pundits and technology vendors may dispute the exact size and growth rate of the IIoT, there is a general consensus that the space offers significant business value and will be transformative indeed.

Are the smart connected devices—or the “things”—that form the IIoT the same machines and devices we know and understand today, only connected? Or do we need to invent new paradigms to define system functionality and product architecture in order to realize the value of the IoT? Read More

Aug 17

To Reuse or Not To Reuse Parts, That is the Question

By Automotive, Design Reuse, Manufacturing, PLM One Comment

Design Reuse

For years I have been critical of the automotive industry and its overzealous and careless tendency to design new parts instead of reusing existing designs, inventory parts and suppliers.  The Rationale to resist the temptation to innovate and reuse tried and proven parts is broad and multifaceted. Among the chief arguments:

  • Accelerate time to market and reduce the number and severity of ECOs
  • Reuse tooling and manufacturing processes
  • Improve quality and have better estimation of volume manufacturing ramp up, service load and warranty costs
  • Reduce the need to recreate work instructions, remove and replace procedures and related documentation
  • Lower manufacturing and final product cost
  • Reduce inventory and related costs

A useful way to look at this is that in addition to the benefits of reusing a physical commodity, design reuse promotes knowledge reuse, which has broader and longer lasting benefits.

The argument for design and part reuse gets a bit more involved when we look beyond small parts and subassemblies, which the average consumer doesn’t care about. What about systems that represent the brand identity, such as the engine or transmission? Do consumers know and care whether an engine is exclusive to the brand? How does this knowledge influence buying decisions?

A recent study by Automotive News of auto dealers offers an interesting perspective on the topic. The study indicates that consumers are split almost evenly about how they feel about the brand exclusivity of the engine in the car they’re shopping for and how this knowledge influences their busying decision.

Interestingly, according to the study, consumers care much more about the brand exclusivity of the transmission: more than 50% of consumers now and care whether the car’s transmission is exclusive to that brand.

An even more surprising finding, which, quite frankly, make me somewhat leery about the reliability of this very small (n= 169) study, is that 71% of consumers know and care whether the axles are exclusive to that brand. Or, at least, this is what auto dealers believe.

For some reason, the study did not ask about common car chassis that might have a stronger impact on consumer decisions, because it makes it easier to pitch one brand against the other. A good example is Volkswagen’s A4 platform that is used in a range of vehicles from the luxury sporty Audi TT to the lower end SEAT and Skoda. While most consumers are not aware of the pervasive use common platforms, will they change their mind if they did?

The fidelity of the study’s findings aside, it’s clear that line executives and designers face a dilemma: how far can they reuse parts and systems before they start diluting the brand identity. But finding the right mix of model-exclusive and common design, especially lower level assemblies and parts, is an important step in improving operations while maintain brand’s identity and integrity.

Apr 01
Broken Televison

Television, Heal Thyself! Smart Service and the Internet of Things

By Internet of Things (IoT), Manufacturing, Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) No Comments

Television, Heal Thyself!

I was asked by an investment banker to comment on business applications of the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and specifically on IoT technologies and business models that pertain to this awful word “servitization”: equipment service, remote monitoring, predictive diagnostics and so forth.

Their interest in the topic piqued following a recently published article contrasting the author’s own poor television repair service experience with a hypothetical—but presented as realistic—repair scenario utilizing advanced IoT-based diagnostics. The scenario is given below. I changed the language but kept the essence of the original script intact. Read More