What is Industry 4.0?
 

Industry 4.0 is a term that is becoming very common place, but what the term actually means, and what potential benefits it can bring to the feed industry are still to be discovered.

Feed Mills have been evolving over the past century and its’ history is marked by several significant milestones. The various stages were all driven by the idea of using technology of the day to make industrial processes more productive and efficient.

Some Definition:

IoT, or the Internet of Things, is the combination of several cyber-physical systems communicating with each other autonomously, thus generating an increased amount of data, and then using that data to improve operational excellence, usually measured with improvements to safety, productivity, efficiency, and cost.

Industry 4.0 is not only a vision it is a reality. There is a difference between developing big data and automatically processing big data. Industry 4.0 is utilizing various technologies at all levels of the plant and integrating the systems into a production plant control, thereby creating a Smart Factory, which seamlessly interconnects mechanical sensors, electronics, software, and humans.

The Problem at Hand...

Big data is a well-known problem within the Feed Industry today, where the absence of valuable information is negatively impacting efficiency and productivity.

What is important about big data, is having the ability to monitor and analyze it real-time, and then be able to alert the organization of deviations. In order to use big data for gaining and maintaining control of the process you have to be able to alert the right people, at the right time, and in the right context.

Industry 4.0 is about making pertinent data available across the facility.  Information is only one part of the story; it must drive action, actions that directly impact productivity, efficiency, and profitability.

Integrating IoT

When we attach sensors to monitor the equipment, physical conditions like temperature, pressure, moisture, for example, then bring the signals back to a centralized computer control system, creating a cyber-physical system.

Connecting your mill today is made easy with WEM Analytics – a tool created to organize data and drive continuous improvement opportunities at a glance through various operational dashboards of live and historic data.

Whether your function is in operations, quality, warehousing, accounting, or supply chain management, having the right information immediately available to drive educated decisions is key – WEM Analytics can help by taking guessing out of the equation.