Smart factory transformations, when done at the plant or enterprise level, can help create significant cost savings, improve product quality, and increase employee satisfaction.
Now more than ever, organisations need to do more with less; either scale up rapidly to match increasing demand or keep capacity while reducing footprint.
Businesses generate and capture more data than ever before. Capabilities are fast expanding both to store and analyse this data and to extract valuable, actionable insight from it. We can now visualise and proactively address issues to prevent losing precious production time and to increase asset efficiency, improve product quality, reduce cost and improve safety and sustainability in manufacturing operations.
This is essentially what the Smart Factory Fabric concept does. It connects to an organisation’s digital supply network and;
- collects, connects and analyses production data
- augments human intelligence with machine intelligence
- drives better insight and sustained step change improvements in performance, quality and safety.
While 86% of manufacturers believe it’s imperative to implement a smart factory solution to remain competitive and increase business resilience, it can be a daunting challenge for companies with complex manufacturing operations. Deloitte worked with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to build Smart Factory Fabric that helps simplify and accelerate Smart Factory implementations.
What is Smart Factory Fabric on AWS?
The Smart Factory Fabric is a pre-configured suite of cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) applications and integrated services for companies with manufacturing operations in industries including aerospace and defence, industrial products, automotive, oil, gas and chemicals, power and utilities as well as pharmaceutical and medical devices.
It helps companies accelerate Smart Factory transformations across the enterprise by improving their operational performance and reduce costs by increasing visibility, optimising production, improving quality and reducing unplanned downtime.
The solution has a modular, scalable architecture anchored on AWS that can be tailored to a manufacturer’s unique needs. It is secure by design and ready to complement any company’s existing IT landscape.
Smart Factory Fabric combines AWS’ cloud and IoT services with Deloitte’s experience in business strategy, operations, industrial products and technology engineering.
How is it helping manufacturers?
One of the world’s largest aircraft aerostructures manufacturers was experiencing poor worker and asset efficiency, excessive inventory, and inadequate constraint resolution. The existing production management systems were outdated, and a new solution was required to control production.
The solution A cloud-based production control application to synchronise the shop floor that optimised WIP, throughput, and asset efficiency. The solution featured a dynamic scheduling capability for manpower/machines, RFID tracking for material, and RPA for systems linkages – all on a secure and scalable platform.
The results A 15%-20% WIP reduction, 5-10% throughput increase, improved worker efficiency through visualisation tools to communicate work orders, and automated KPIs for supervisors provided search functionality to locate material.
Deloitte is the headline sponsor of Smart Factory Expo taking place on 9-12 November. Connect with Nick Davis, UK Industry 4.0 leader and the Deloitte team at 11:00 and 15:00 each day for a live demo of Smart Factory Fabric.
If you’re looking for a new podcast that brings you insights from opinion leaders, business leaders, academics and researchers on key developments and their experiences across the manufacturing sector, listen to the Industry 4.0 Ready podcast series. This podcast explores the importance of digital transformation across the manufacturing sector – and its impact on how businesses design, make and service their products.
