In the following article, Industry 4.0 (I 4.0) will be pragmatically classified and reflected upon. For the success of I 4.0, such an orientation towards practical reality should be of particular importance. Today, SMEs are still put off by scenarios that do not correspond to the reality of their own lives. For a pragmatic solution, it is helpful to look forward, starting from the origins.
A Look Back to Look Ahead
The meteoric rise of the term Industry 4.0 in all media quickly gives rise to the idea of a technological revolution. However, it is better to speak of a quiet evolution, as the origins of I 4.0 go back a long way. In the early 1980s, General Motors took the first major step towards machine and process networking with MAP, the Manufacturing Automation Protocol. The approach here was to create a standardized communication protocol for machine networking. However, because this approach was too far ahead of its time in terms of complexity, it failed.
It was not until a decade later, at the beginning of the 1990s, that this approach was followed by CIM, Computer Integrated Manufacturing. Like Industry 4.0 today, CIM was a megatrend in industrial research for several years and led, among other things, to the establishment of several new chairs at technical universities. Back then, CIM was also a constant topic in the relevant press, just like I 4.0 is today. And to draw another parallel: it is a rather elusive term. Everyone involved with the topic of CIM had their own vision and interpretation, as well as corresponding expectations of the topic. CIM was an equally euphoric topic: the promise of a production world networked via machines. Although CIM was able to remain in the public consciousness for several years, at some point it disappeared first from the press and then from the minds of the general public. The reasons for its failure were, on the one hand, that expectations of CIM were too high and, on the other, that the computer hardware was inadequate compared to today.
In research, the overly high expectations gave way to a sense of what was feasible; the hope of quick success was replaced by the realization that implementation still required a lot of hard work. Almost 20 years have passed since then.
So that Industry 4.0 doesn’t just remain a vision…
Today, everyone is talking about I 4.0. Why has there been so much hype surrounding the topic? What is new about it? Or is it just old wine in new bottles?
Certainly, some of the CIM enthusiasm of the past has remained and has rekindled people’s spirits. But 20 years of development in the fields of electrical engineering – and here especially in sensor technology and control systems – as well as in the software sector have led to huge advances in industrial automation and machine networking that have gone almost unnoticed to date. And this has brought an old dream back to life – Industry 4.0.
In these 20 years, new ideas have also matured and old ones have been put into perspective. The old idea of decentralized automation – i.e. networked local control intelligence – has been developed further in the direction of autonomous information and processes. All process-relevant information accompanies the workpiece through production, it communicates with smart machines and systems, the product is created on its own as it moves through production. Or the versatile factory with the ability to adapt to new products as if by magic.
However, the author of this article had a déjà vu experience with some of these ideas and went from Saul to Paul 4.0, only to turn from Paul to Saul again.
Twenty years ago, the author himself was enthusiastic about the then truly new, decentralized ideas and autonomous decision-making processes. As part of his own research work, he had developed a concept in which all machines and systems were to be equipped with additional “intelligence”. These were to take over planning, control and monitoring processes for each machine themselves – and were referred to as intelligent objects. In addition, so-called “agents” acted as information brokers with the task of distributing information, bundling responses and evaluating them.
So far, so good. There were just a few minor problems. Communication “exploded” in this concept: every intelligent object spoke to many others. New coordination was required again and again because not all the information was bundled on the table from the outset, but was distributed one after the other in dribs and drabs.
Over time and with increasing field experience in the real world, the author realized that decentralized structures can also have massive disadvantages, namely when all information should be known initially, for example in planning tasks, in order to achieve an optimal planning result. Against this background, the idea of I 4.0, heralded as the new savior – namely workpieces moving themselves through production – seems to be absolutely counterproductive in terms of optimally coordinated processes. This is only practically feasible when capacity utilization is low.
Care should therefore be taken not to overstretch the arc here. Otherwise, the same thing will happen with I 4.0 in a few years’ time as happened with CIM 20 years ago: it will die because expectations were too high.
Although the technical conditions are much better today, we should still not promise castles in the air. Instead, we need to realize that progress is usually better achieved in many small steps than in big leaps. This setting may not be as sexy as the big hype, but it helps to avoid ending up in a big hangover.
… the path to Industry 4.0 must be followed consistently…
In order not to leave the impression that I 4.0 is just a new edition of CIM, the new aspects should be mentioned here in brief: intelligent sensors that monitor themselves and automatically make adjustments in the event of degradation, systems that constantly synchronize themselves by self-configuring their environment, the use of all data collected in production to optimize processes and products, a continuous networking of everything with everything.
This inevitably raises IT security issues, as the risks of sabotage and manipulation increase with end-to-end networking. Inevitably, the complexity of the systems also increases and with it – even if your architecture decouples this accordingly – the susceptibility to errors. If you take a sober and less euphoric view of the emerging ideas and analyze the potential that lies dormant in them critically and in relation to your own application, companies must take the path towards Industry 4.0 today, because the productivity potential that can be achieved is enormous.
Even if it often seems that Industry 4.0 is shining as a new, bright star in the automation firmament, in some companies the bright star has already been shining in the firmament for some time. What distinguishes these companies from others?
First of all, it is a lot to do with awareness and the associated way of approaching things consistently. These companies are characterized by their constant striving for perfection. For them, there is never a state where everything has been achieved; every goal is always just an intermediate goal on a never-ending journey. This is an essential basic idea.
… for a practicable target scenario 4.0…
In order to successfully take the path to the goal, this goal should be ambitious and far-reaching, but the path to it should be divided into steps that are not too large. It is helpful to take nature as a guide, as it has been extremely successful in creating complex systems over the course of evolution. For example, unicellular organisms with low functionality and complexity became multicellular organisms that continued to use the basic functionality of unicellular organisms, but refined it through specialization. These cellular building blocks later developed into organs with highly specific functionality and autonomy. The nervous system emerged as the network that took over the coordination of the organs, controlled by an increasingly powerful central unit, the brain.
Following this model, we arrive at decentrally organized functions that are controlled and monitored by a central authority. The first step is therefore to create well-functioning decentralized structures, which are then centrally networked. Networking here means the flow of materials and information.
And this is precisely where pragmatism must come in. There are still too many manufacturing companies with far too many islands without an automated flow of materials and information. The good thing about this is that carefully considered investments are not an end in themselves, but highly profitable measures. The consistent introduction of an MES system, for example, would quickly lead to a significant increase in productivity without additional investment in new machines or more personnel.
The absolutely decisive factor for success is the involvement of all those involved. Without their full involvement, the investments made would be pointless. And it is precisely this involvement that is the measure of the speed at which a company progresses here. Information technology integration is usually the first, simpler and often more cost-effective step before material flow integration.
… preferably with an experienced partner with MES and automation expertise
Over the last 20 years, our company FASTEC has had the opportunity to work together with many companies and come close to this vision together with them. What has been done and what has been achieved? Well-organized sub-processes, for example, are flexibly interlinked by means of an automated material flow to form a variant-controlled overall process, data is recorded at many process-relevant points (process and tracking data), necessary data such as work instructions, drawings or bills of materials are provided to employees at the work center or on the line in relation to orders, items and work cycles, or the integrated controllers are supplied with recipes or DNC data in a variant-controlled manner. Processes are automated by workflows, variants are produced by different routing in the material flow. And the big picture is taken care of by higher-level planning, which regulates the overall coordination of orders. Any malfunctions that occur are immediately recognized and quickly reported to the responsible maintenance technician. Any resulting delays are fed back into the planning process.
In short, the E in MES, the execution, has been given the position it deserves and production has been expanded into a functioning control loop, starting with planning by controlling the processes and monitoring them.
However, the road to I 4.0 is still a long one. However, the deep integration of control technology with information systems, for example in a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) for production, has long since begun. It is clear from the above that Industry 4.0 is a broad-based, cross-cutting topic in which software expertise and distinctive know-how in the MES area is only one facet. Control technology expertise is also necessary, as information and material flow need to be linked in a meaningful way, i.e. controlling the material flow using information and intervening in processes, e.g. for process locking in the absence of QA approval. Controlling complex processes and at the same time combining them with a high degree of adaptability requires automation systems that can be flexibly adapted to the product and production environment via configuration. As an MES provider with 20 years of experience in the field of material flow automation, FASTEC has the expertise and the necessary experience to successfully implement I 4.0 projects.
