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Automation in Intralogistics

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From the perspective of a warehouse CEO or executive, the importance of streamlining operations via intralogistics automation to create an efficient distribution centre cannot be overstated. Warehousing firms are always looking for ways to improve productivity and meet customer demand using means such as business process integration. Automation is one tool that can help to achieve those goals, but it may be unclear exactly how the intralogistics process can be improved by adding automated solutions. Intralogistics automation refers to the use of automated systems and technologies within a warehouse or distribution centre to improve efficiency, accuracy, and safety of processes like pipe fabrication. In this blog post, we will look at why intralogistics automation matters to warehouses, and steps to get started with facility automation.

Benefits of Intralogistics Automation

One of the main benefits of intralogistics automation is increased productivity. Automated systems can work faster and more accurately than human workers, which can lead to a significant increase in the amount of goods that can be processed in each time period. Additionally, automated systems can also reduce the number of errors that occur during the picking and packing process, which can lead to a reduction in the number of returns or customer complaints. Another benefit of intralogistics automation is improved protection from safety hazards in metal fabrication. Automated systems can reduce the need for human workers to perform dangerous tasks, such as climbing ladders or operating heavy machinery. Additionally, the use of automated systems can also reduce the risk of injuries caused by repetitive motions, such as picking and packing. Automated systems can also improve the accuracy of inventory tracking. It can help to ensure that the correct products are picked and packed, and that inventory levels are accurate. This can help to reduce the number of stockouts and overstocking of items such as pressure vessels, which can lead to cost savings.

Steps To Get Started

  1. Evaluate facility’s suitability for automation

Before jumping into automating material handling equipment, assessing the facility’s readiness is essential. Intralogistics automation works best in multi-shift workplaces because the schedule leads to a faster return on investment. Facilities larger than 200,000 square feet will see a more rapid payback than smaller installations. Because the distances are longer in a larger plant, the time-savings of decentralised automation are more significant. The optimal performance of automated forklifts, tuggers, and pallet jacks requires Wi-Fi and a Warehouse Management System.

  1. Consider material transportation workflows

It is necessary to focus on workflows that have well-established automation practices. Case studies and success stories from similar industries are valuable resources and provide insight into the workflows that are easiest to automate and yield the most rapid results.

  1. Reach out to vendors who have relevant experience

Intralogistics automation has many moving parts, and it makes sense to take advantage of other people’s knowledge and experience in this area. Look for vendors that have the specific know-how to help an organization with a proven track record of quantifiable results.

  1. Identify the best use cases

Warehouse owners need to look for applications that represent easy gains and that are scalable. It is better to start with an intralogistics solution in one location and let it prove itself. With the concept thus demonstrated, it can be easily implemented in other locations and large rewards can be reaped. Vendors can help to determine areas that represent easy successes and they can also assist with calculating the return on investment.

The Last Word

History has shown repeatedly: technology creates far more jobs than it displaces. Other studies show companies that invest in robotic automation grow faster than companies that do not. Thus the time is ripe for warehouse owners to dive into the world of automation and transform their intralogistics operations!

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Advantages of Clean Lubricants and Bearings

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The importance of bearing and lubricant cleanliness is perhaps self-evident, yet too little attention is paid to this critical quality. Even when small particles of foreign matter are not actually causing failure, they can ruin the bearing’s smooth-running qualities and low torque values – which, again, means higher energy bills and a less competitive plant. The results of poor maintenance and dirty bearings is lack of productivity, plant down-time, increased safety hazards, and unnecessarily high energy costs.  This avoidable failure creates costs that cannot be ignored in an increasingly competitive world.

Types of Contaminants

According to a major bearing producer, a particle of 5 microns – 5 µm — or less can cause a precision bearing to fail. To put this into perspective a human hair averages about 100 µm; coal dust 1-100µm, iron dust 4-20µm, atmospheric dust up to 30µm, combustion-related particulates from industrial processes up to 2.5µm and tobacco smoke up to 4µm. In general terms, dirt and contaminants that can impede a bearing’s performance are divided into three main categories:

  • Airborne contaminants: industrial smoke and dust, metal flakes, abrasive flakes, lint etc. which might enter the bearing due to poor storage and/or workshop practices.
  • Transferred contaminants: dirt that is picked up from one source and passed along to the bearing from hands, work surfaces, packaging, water tanks, poorly managed grease packing during assembly, grease degraded by moisture (condensation in the container and/or housing) and contaminants such as fumes and smoke.
  • Introduced dirt: impurities that enter the bearings from dirty lubricants or can be forced into the bearing during re-lubrication by contaminated equipment or grease points not thoroughly cleaned.

These sources of contamination should all be considered abrasive, corrosive, or leading causes of degradation of bearing performance and are all avoidable.

Merits of Clean Lubrication

Cleanliness should extend beyond the bearings themselves to work and storage areas, benches, tools, fixtures, and housings.  Bearing installation operations should be located away from other machining operations, such as grinding and drilling etc. to help minimise contamination problems. Selection of right lubricants leads to increased sustainability in metal manufacturing and poor lubrication practices are a leading cause of contamination.  Unsealed containers are susceptible to contamination from solids and from water due to condensation.  Once a grease container is opened, it is susceptible to oxidisation and water contamination which results from condensation caused by daily temperature cycles and from storage in humid conditions.  Oxidisation and condensation also occur the same way inside bearing housing.

Strict attention needs to be paid to cleanliness during grease transfers from bulk supplies to greasing apparatus, and to the application of greasing equipment to grease points.  Due to the nature of site conditions and the task itself, careful cleaning of grease points prior to greasing is frequently either not carried out properly, or at all. Static charges caused by friction in heat induction bending services can cause bearing currents which in turn can cause the steel rings and balls of the bearings to become magnetised, which worsens the problem of fine metallic particles introduced into the bearing as they will tend to stay there. Electrolytic action is present in most bearings where it is possible for the bearing and journal to act as electrodes, and where, due to some electrical phenomena, a difference of potential exists between them. A clean lubricant oil film acts as an insulator but impurities are the main cause of conductivity.  Clean, uncontaminated lubricant oil cannot act as an electrolyte: the presence of water or other foreign matter will initiate electrolytic action of the oil in the grease, which will shorten the life of the bearing.

Final Words

There are multiple advantages to having clean lubrication and bearings, especially considering the operations floor is vulnerable to different types of contamination. In the long run, equipment malfunction or degeneration is likely to occur in the absence of proper maintenance and this would require machine turnover at an advanced rate. Thus, in the manufacturing industry, clean lubricants and bearings go a long way towards ensuring increased productivity and lower costs!

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Business Process Integration in Metal Fabrication

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The metal fabrication industry manages intricate production processes and diverse material requirements, and it services customers with high expectations of suppliers. Manufacturers grapple with unique challenges but they can also seize the potential for remarkable improvements through enhanced integration of business processes. The sector is ever more challenging with rising energy, mining plant and equipment costs, workforce shortages and ongoing logistics challenges from almost three years of pandemic disruptions. However, with the right approach and investment, these challenges are not insurmountable. Integrating business processes to elevate the visibility of management information would empower more informed decisions — which are crucial for businesses to thrive. Let us dive deeper into this topic in this blog.

Optimization using ERP and Automation

To confront these challenges head-on, fabricated metals manufacturers should consider implementing a modern enterprise resource planning (ERP) system tailored to their industry’s needs. Generic ERP solutions often need more industry-specific features and functions to support nuanced requirements. ERP systems designed exclusively for manufacturers can streamline processes across the post-pandemic fabrication supply chain. This includes order management, production planning, inventory control, and quality assurance. Such an integrated solution seamlessly coordinates operations and offers real-time visibility into processes, leading to enhanced collaboration, data-driven decision-making, more efficient scheduling, and better shop floor control.

There is an unmistakable shift towards automation in modern metals manufacturing, particularly in operations. This reflects a broader industry trend to optimise efficiency and resource allocation using techniques such as AI video surveillance on the shop floor. As automation takes over repetitive processes, human resources are freed up to focus on managing the more intricate aspects of manufacturing operations. This strategic realignment of human capital enables companies to tap into the full potential of workforces.

MOM – The Operations Bulwark

A pivotal component of this approach is integrating sophisticated systems such as manufacturing operations management (MOM) within an ERP solution. MOM is a cornerstone in providing invaluable support throughout the manufacturing lifecycle, ensuring that precision and consistency are upheld in the most complex manufacturing environments. With MOM’s integration with ERP and its capacity to collect data from the shop floor, manufacturers can achieve consistency and precision that goes beyond what human-centric processes can offer. This integration minimises the margin for error and safeguards the quality and reliability of the product, thereby bolstering overall operational excellence.

Integrating MOM With ERP

Some operational benefits of an ERP system with MOM for fabricated metals manufacturers are:

Advanced scheduling – Advanced scheduling leverages algorithms and optimisation techniques to create optimal schedules, considering machine capabilities, material availability, labour capacity and delivery deadlines. It balances workloads, minimises idle time and enhances productivity.

Streamlining processes – Implementing an ERP system fundamentally centralises and streamlines critical processes across the supply chain from managing the customer order through to delivery and servicing, creating a unified and synchronised operational framework. The newfound efficiency reduces operational redundancies and fosters better decision-making through real-time data access.

Administrative efficiency enhancement – With the adoption of ERP, companies can dramatically reduce administrative overheads by automating tasks such as pipe spool fabrication that were once manual and time-consuming. This boosts efficiency and frees up resources for more strategic and value-added activities.

Visibility informs decision-making – One of the most profound benefits of ERP implementation is its granular insight into production data and key performance indicators. Data-driven insight equips management with the tools for strategic decision-making, driving efficiency and profitability to new heights.

Key Takeaways

In a market characterised by rapid change, manufacturers may not have control over external forces but they can leverage technology to optimise their operations. ERP solutions tailored for manufacturers offer metal fabricators the tools needed to integrate their processes seamlessly, improve the visibility of management information and proactively confront challenges. The path to success in the fabricated metals industry is unequivocal: embrace integration, harness the capabilities of ERP systems designed for manufacturers and use data-driven insights that drive efficiency, profitability, and sustainable growth.

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Benefits of Product Management Software

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Developing a product from its initial concept to a fully realized consumable is no small feat. Product development can be a prolonged and iterative process with multiple iterations, bottlenecks, and challenges at every step of the development process. To maximize efficiency, product managers must have a clear sense of the challenges they face and the potential for product roadmap management software to help address them. So, what are the challenges encountered during product development and how does product management software help to mitigate these? Let us deep-dive into this topic.

Common Challenges Faced

  • Complex Supply Chains – Manufacturing even a relatively simple product may require numerous suppliers, components, and materials. Each point along the supply chain must be harmonized with the broader product development roadmap.
  • Varying Product Lifecycle Phases – Different products or components can be at various stages of development, production, or even retirement, which can be challenging to manage. Often, product managers must contend with different iterations of the same basic product or juggle the demands of various items within the product portfolio.
  • Regulatory Compliance – While steel manufacturing companies have a strong impact on global trade and industry, they are often subject to stringent regulatory requirements that change over time and vary by region. Product development must always be coordinated with legal compliance, encompassing everything from consumer safety to environmental stewardship.
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration – Effective product development never happens in silos. Instead, it requires multi-disciplinary teams of designers, engineers, and testers to work together in tandem. Ultimately, bringing the product to store shelves requires collaboration with sales and marketing professionals.
  • Resource Allocation – Another challenge manufacturers face is ensuring their resources are allocated as effectively as possible. This includes manpower, mining plant and equipment, and raw materials. Ineffective resource allocation can yield a number of issues, including production bottlenecks that can bring the entire product development process to a standstill.

How Product Roadmap Management Software Can Help

  • Visibility Across Supply Chains – Roadmap software allows teams to visualize end-to-end logistics, identifying potential bottlenecks or areas of concern as part of efforts to future-proof supply chains. This perspective can enable product managers to source new vendors or to make necessary changes to the production timeline.
  • Lifecycle Management – With roadmap software, teams can track products at every stage of their lifecycle, ensuring no phase is overlooked. In other words, the right software solutions can ensure that product development teams pay an appropriate level of attention to products that are new to market (e.g., pressure vessels) and those that are close to being sunset, offering adequate support to the entire pool of customers.
  • Compliance Tracking – Additionally, product software solutions can be used to track regulatory changes and ensure products remain compliant throughout their lifecycle. This is an invaluable way to alleviate some of the regulatory burdens that product managers feel.
  • Enhanced Collaboration – Product roadmaps dismantle siloes and improves collaboration among product team members. A centralized dashboard fosters better communication among departments, ensuring everyone is on the same page.
  • Optimized Resource Allocation – Roadmap software can help identify underutilized assets or overburdened teams by providing a visual representation of resource allocation.

Final Thoughts

It should be understood that product development is a multi-step process involving many variables and countless potential hurdles. Product managers have their work cut out for them as they seek to clear those hurdles, but product roadmap management software can be an invaluable asset. Indeed, the right road mapping tools allow for improved visibility, collaboration, agility, cost control, and more. As such, these software solutions can be the “secret sauce” in successfully realizing the manufacturer’s vision of getting a product from its initial sketch to the marketplace!

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Strategies to Reduce Manufacturing Cycle Times

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While many industries are now operating as they did prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, manufacturers continue to grapple with complex challenges like global supply chain issues, unpredictable product demand spikes, and delivery driver shortages. These challenges have extended lead times, which, in turn, has placed significant pressure on companies to improve manufacturing cycle times. This has resulted in manufacturers finding ways to streamline their processes, automate manual functions, and redesign products so they are easier to produce. So, what are some of the strategies followed by manufacturers to reduce cycle times? Let us dive deeper into this topic through this blog.

Accessing and Centralizing Data

Manufacturing plants have traditionally been structured in a way that facilitates operations but results in information silos and a lack of transparency. Data is frequently stored in multiple sources such as warehouse and inventory management, manufacturing resource planning (MRP), manufacturing execution systems (MES), and edge computing. Data management is one of the top manufacturing technology trends and it provides an end-to-end view that can guide decision-making and optimize a manufacturing operation. Increasingly, manufacturers are creating a data fabric to centralize their data. This virtualized architecture layer and tool set connect data across disparate systems and creates a unified view. It prevents unauthorized access with unique security controls and automatically optimizes data for performance. Additionally, teams can connect systems without being slowed down by the complexity of traditional data programming, which leads to rapid application development.

Maximize Machine Uptime

A significant contributor to manufacturing cycle time spikes is critical machines going offline. Improving machine uptime builds overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), which measures the amount of manufacturing time that is productive. Machine uptime depends on the quality of the maintenance of the equipment. Some manufacturers only fix machines when they break, others schedule regular maintenance, and some focus on proactive defect elimination. The most effective method is predictive maintenance, such as using AI in video surveillance to improve productivity. Connecting machines and IoT devices allow manufacturers to access data and use analytics to identify flagging performance issues and wear and tear before machines fail. It also ensures maintenance technicians focus on the most urgent problems. With predictive maintenance, manufacturers can identify performance declines before they negatively impact cycle times. It also increases the lifespan of machinery, which reduces the cost of equipment replacement. Predictive maintenance reduces breakdowns by an average of 70% and maintenance costs by 25%.

Identify and Eliminate Bottlenecks

Performance slowdowns can be caused by manual processes, poor work floor layout, or a design that could be improved to simplify product assembly. Even something as simple as extended pipe fabrication setup times can increase operational costs and bottleneck time-to-market. The two critical components to consider are process stability and process speed. Stability refers to the standardization of a process – how much variability is evident? If the average cycle time varies significantly, it will be challenging to make process improvements and accurately measure speed, or efficiency enhancements, so high variability must be the first issue addressed.

Once the average cycle time is stable, performance lags caused by bottlenecks or process deviation can be identified. One way to accomplish this is by utilizing process mining tools. Process mining examines how a process occurs in the real world from log data in software systems. For example, running process mining on water tank development process might identify that employees manually enter data that could be automated or captured via an application form or a photo scan. Or it might be observed that a single handoff between employee stations takes unnecessary additional time. This could indicate the need to change the operations floor layout to shave a few seconds off each handoff (which results in significant savings over time).

Concluding Remarks

While manufacturers can develop strategies to improve floor operations, the correct and appropriate implementation of these strategies is the differentiator between visible improvements and sunk costs. Also, a holistic approach is generally necessary to reduce manufacturing cycle time and quality remains king – after all, reduced cycle times do not help if quality is compromised!

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Hyperspectral Imaging Technology for Mining

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Mineral resources are essential to Australia’s national security as well as to economic prosperity.  There is an increased thrust towards a green industry and cities like Queensland are well-positioned to play a lead role in this regard. Growth in demand for critical minerals, now referred to as ‘green minerals’, is being stimulated by the move towards a renewable economy, and this calls for innovative approaches in mining. One such innovative technology is hyperspectral imaging. So, what is hyperspectral imaging, and can it be even more useful to miners?

Overview Of Hyperspectral Imaging

Hyperspectral imaging, or imaging spectroscopy, combines the power of digital imaging and spectroscopy. Digital imaging has applications in the medical industry via steel fabrication and hyperspectral cameras scan an item or area, collecting the light intensity of each pixel across the electromagnetic spectrum. The light striking each pixel is broken down into many different bands of colours. This provides thousands more colours than what our eyes can see or what a RGB camera in a smart phone for example, can capture. Humans can only see or collect three colour bands: red, green, and blue, whereas a hyperspectral camera collects and analyses a wide spectrum of light instead of just three colours. This provides an enormous amount of data which results in three-dimensional image cubes comprising two spatial dimensions and one spectral dimension.

Hyperspectral Imaging in Mining

HySpex NEO hyperspectral cameras are advancing the use of spectral imaging in the mining sector for identifying minerals. One example is analysing the reflected light scanning from a drill core sample. Broken down into hundreds of different wavelengths, the unique spectral signatures for each mineral can be recognised — enabling geologists to identify rock types in a core sample. This process is so valuable to geologists that CSIRO has developed a ‘spectral library’ or database of sample types to help with fast identification of mineral types. Modern exploration techniques from multiple platforms — for example spaceborne and airborne — to detect and map the spectral characteristics of the materials, require spectral libraries as an essential reference.

Mineral resource exploration using mining plant and equipment is an essential part of today’s high-tech industries and elements such as rare-earth elements (REEs) and copper are in especially high demand. Rare-earth elements are necessary components of more than 200 products in a wide range of applications. They are used in high-tech consumer products, such as cell phones, computer hard drives, electric and hybrid vehicles, and even flat screen monitors and televisions.

Challenges Involved

Reference libraries of spectral data such as the CSIRO’s on its site (and app) called MyLogger are needed to improve hyperspectral scanning of large areas of Australia. A research team was involved in gathering predictive information about ore grades from the outcrop of a former gold, copper, and pyrite mine in Cyprus using hyperspectral data gathered from cameras on the ground and from UAV scans. In mapping the distribution of surface minerals, the team tested ’spectral libraries’.  However, compiling, interpreting, and analysing the hyperspectral data requires significant expertise. It can also be time-consuming and extend the turnover rate required for proactive intervention. This is not ideal for on-site mining and steel fabrication operations.

To meet this challenge, HySpex NEO have joined forces with a consortium of European partners and the Sustainable Minerals Institute in Queensland, enabled by AusScope, in a project called M4Mining.  The challenge for this group is to deliver a hyperspectral camera mounted on a drone that can provide calibrated, corrected, and even interpreted data from a scan within 24 hours, making decisions at mine sites far more useful as well as far more economical.

Closing Thoughts

It can be observed that hyperspectral imaging has the potential to add a layer of dynamism to on-site mining operations and production. It is a cutting-edge technique which can be quickly used to identify mineral types, however efficient data analyzing methods need to be incorporated to ensure that hyperspectral imaging is effective. Expect Australia’s mining industry to gravitate towards this technique – we will be hearing a lot more about hyperspectral imaging soon!

Security team watching over CCTV surveillance monitors.

Benefits of AI Video Surveillance in Manufacturing

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There is an increased need for video surveillance in the manufacturing and metal fabrication industries. This is partly due to a change in the way people work as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also because of an increased awareness among managers to optimize production and reduce costs. In this scenario, introducing Artificial Intelligence (AI) in video surveillance and Augmented Reality (AR) has the potential to transform operations and empower managers to manage work more effectively. At the same time, AI can help to streamline manufacturing processes and provide real-time monitoring and security. So, how can we unlock these business benefits of AI video surveillance? This blog will analyze this topic in greater detail.

Unlocking Efficiency

CCTV surveillance has long been an indispensable tool for security, but its capabilities have expanded far beyond monitoring entrances and exits. With the integration of AI, managers can identify and optimize operational processes across a variety of areas, including staff, logistics, manufacturing, and production. Through machine-learning, AI video surveillance systems have been trained to detect people and vehicles with incredible accuracy. Alerts of vehicle movements enhance monitoring of production & shipment progress.

Heatmaps detailing areas of use can change the layout of work floors, storefronts, or office spaces. People detection, counting and queue management capabilities are built into AI video surveillance systems, enabling rapid response to customer service, more efficient logistics, and improvement in communication between employees across different departments, buildings, and locations. Real-time monitoring of employee activities allows for immediate response and intervention when necessary. Intelligent video monitoring by managers is especially valuable in industries where coordination and synchronization among team members are crucial for success.

Prioritizing Workplace Safety

Workplace health and safety (WHS) is of paramount importance for any business. AI video surveillance acts as a vigilant partner in preventing WHS issues and accidents. By analyzing footage, AI algorithms can identify potential hazards and unsafe practices, such as possible accidents during manufacture of pressure vessels. This proactive approach not only protects employees from harm but also shields businesses from potential legal and financial liabilities. Moreover, AI-powered surveillance can detect signs of a negative work environment, harassment, and abusive behaviour. Identifying such issues early on enables management to intervene and create a healthier workplace culture. It is necessary to protect the staff and business by implementing video surveillance policies that work to safeguard the well-being of staff and management.

Remote Security and Access Control

One of the most remarkable features of AI video surveillance is its capability for face, number plate, and metadata (attributes of people and vehicles, e.g.: vehicle colour) recognition. The latest AI video surveillance products offer the means to create permissions or blocklists for access control, thus improving security by granting or denying entry based on recognized faces. The system captures detailed vehicle number plates for accurate evidence and streamlines management by allowing searches based on specific characteristics such as clothing or vehicle colour. Each tagged AI video event allows one to zero in and export key moments across multiple cameras when incidents occur without having to search through hours of footage. These technologies can rapidly transform the way managers, especially those working remotely or off-site, take control of assets and allocate effort.

Closing Statement

It can be observed that AI video surveillance has multiple applications such as remote-site management, monitoring material and machinery arrival, adhering to specifications and requirements (e.g., during manufacturing of water tanks), ensuring worker safety and, site security. Thus, AI video surveillance is no longer confined to the realm of security; it has evolved into a catalyst for efficiency, safety, and strategic decision-making. In time, AI will no longer be an option in video surveillance – it will become a necessity!

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The Rise and Rise of IIoT

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It is a well-known fact that IoT (Internet of Things), such as IoT in Oil and Gas, has been a buzzword for some time now. The concept of “smart” living which involves usage of wearables which transmit data on health, performance and monetary matters captured the imagination and led to the development of smart watches, BP trackers etc. This concept has now been extended to the industrial space with Industrial IoT, or IIoT, being the result. So, why should organizations adopt IIoT and what are the considerations and IT’s role in this regard. Let us find out more in this blog.

Uniqueness and Benefits of IIoT

IIoT connects machines and devices in industries such as manufacturing, steel fabrication, transportation, oil and gas, power generation and transmission, mines, and ports. Commercial, enterprise, or consumer IoT—also simply known as IoT—is used to describe connected devices within homes and office spaces, such as cameras, badge readers, and HVAC control systems. Failure of IIoT can have catastrophic consequences, creating high risk and potentially life-threatening situations. Downtime of other IoT devices may result in inconveniences, but it does not usually cause emergency situations.

Industrial IoT enables organizations to get a wealth of actionable data from their operations. When properly aggregated and analyzed, the data helps them better control operations, with the potential to improve worker safety, increase production uptime by predictive maintenance of machinery, maintain product quality, ensure regulatory compliance, and improve operational efficiencies.

Major Considerations for IIoT Adoption

  • Network Equipment – The switches, routers, and wireless equipment that connect IIoT devices must provide the needed bandwidth and be able to withstand punishing physical conditions on factory floors or outdoors. Equipment, such as mining and plant equipment, must support the communication protocols in use to provide visibility and help monitor each endpoint.
  • Centralized connectivity deployment and monitoring – For organizations to efficiently monitor and scale their deployments, centralized visibility of device connectivity is of paramount importance. Organizations need to be able to deploy and configure connectivity to their edge devices and equipment quickly and accurately.
  • Asset tracking and monitoring – Continuous tracking and monitoring of IIoT devices, assets, and facilities is essential to keep them up and running efficiently. Such visibility helps to quickly identify potential issues that could impact operations, worker safety, and revenue.

Role of IT in IIoT

  • Reliable Network – IT must strive to ensure that a reliable network with sufficient bandwidth capacity is in place so time-sensitive data can be transmitted without delay to applications in data centers or the cloud. The network that connects IIoT devices and sensors needs to support diverse physical channels.
  • Intelligent network control – The network for IIoT must be kept highly available. IIoT devices may be numerous and spread across a large geographical area, but a network controller can automate networking equipment deployment and keep configurations consistent, and firmware updated. It can also help ensure that devices are performing to expectations—and guide administrators to take corrective actions if not.
  • Security for critical resources – As IT and IIoT networks converge, security practices must also converge. Protecting IIoT is best done with a comprehensive, integrated security solution (including cyber security) rather than a multitude of point products. The same proven security tools that IT has deployed over the years can benefit IIoT as well.

Closing Statement

With the advent of digital manufacturing and industrial AI-based solutions, IIoT has the potential to deliver breakthrough business outcomes with simplicity, speed, and scale. It can empower modern industrial workers and can resolve business challenges by making use of industrial data. Additionally, IIoT can also increase efficiencies, reduce costs, and improve safety and security. IIoT is a revolution in the world of fabrication and manufacturing and it is poised to transform the world of metal operations!

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Centrally Controlled Automation helps WA Kaolin scale up

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A new kaolin mining operation in Wickepin, Western Australia, is utilising an integrated automation solution to reduce overall costs of mining plant and equipment, improve scheduling, and deliver ongoing benefits to operations. Kaolin, which is becoming increasingly valuable, is a soft white clay that has been surging in demand, with uses in applications including paper and plasterboard, ceramics, fiberglass, paints and coatings, plastics, rubber, pharmaceuticals and medicine, cosmetics, concrete construction materials and agriculture. WA Kaolin – an ASX-listed mineral exploration, extraction, and processing company – has developed a proprietary dry processing method known as K99, which turns raw material into market-suitable feedstock for global customers. Combined with the high quality of the ore reserve, the K99 process delivers high-quality ultra-bright kaolin at a lower cost than conventional chemical bleaching and magnetic separation processing.

WA Kaolin has constructed a Stage 1 commercial processing plant on a three-hectare site in Wickepin, about 200 kilometres southeast of Perth, Western Australia. There is a strategic plan in place to expand production capacity to exceed 400,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) after 36 months using steel fabrication to boost mining operations, so WA Kaolin selected engineering and planning consultancy, Willyung Electrical & Controls Engineering (WECE) to manage the process of steadily scaling up. WECE analysed the requirements, and selected Rockwell Automation’s PlantPAx® Distributed Control System (DCS) to provide a single, plant-wide control system, with the flexibility to make better and faster business decisions and a scalable solution for future expansion.

Centralised, plant-wide control

Rockwell Automation’s PlantPAx DCS will monitor and run the facility from a single point of control, providing seamless integration into control and power systems and heat induction bending services, and outputting data that is easy to analyse. The latest version of PlantPAx DCS has been designed to be an integral part of a digital transformation strategy that boosts productivity and profitability, while reducing operational risk. “Large projects like the WA Kaolin Wickepin processing plant are complex, and it’s easy to come in over-budget or off-schedule if the right automation technology isn’t implemented upfront,” said Raj Singh, channel manager, Rockwell Automation. By seamlessly integrating process, power, and information across the plant right from the outset, WA Kaolin was able to achieve better automation benefits and a faster time-to-market, and the system can readily be scaled up as production increases.

Faster time-to-market

One of the major benefits of Rockwell Automation’s PlantPAx DCS for new facilities is a faster time-to-market, which means plants can begin producing quicker. “Having total plant visibility in the planning stage means that from inception to delivery, total time is reduced. After analysing WA Kaolin’s robust and ambitious scale-up plans, we determined that Rockwell Automation had the best automation solution for the project and for the future,” said Chris Bock, managing director and principal electrical engineer, WECE. “As a system integrator, being able to deliver to the end user in a reduced timeframe is a major win. Rockwell Automation’s technology has been instrumental in enabling us to achieve these gains,” added Bock.

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Post-Pandemic Fabrication Supply Chain

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The COVID-19 pandemic had led to the disruption of the fabrication and manufacturing supply chain. First came the supply shock, where many fabricators dealt with canceled orders not from lack of demand but because manufacturers could not get other needed parts for the final product. Then came the second punch, this time on the demand side, as unemployment spiked dramatically. manufacturers reacted by reducing or halting orders altogether. Now that the severity of the pandemic has considerably diminished, there is expected to be an evolution of the metal fabrication supply chain. There may be new trends and factors coming up in this regard, and this blog will look to deep-dive into this topic.

Transparency

Supplier management and optimization is a critical requirement in supply chain management since one would want the plumbing set up for multiple supply chains so that one can turn on the faucet here or there, depending on the timing. To do that in some cases, manufacturers reduced the number of faucets (suppliers) to just a few large, highly reliable ones. This in part has helped make some of the largest heavy steel manufacturing companies even larger. The COVID-19 crisis might spur more dual sourcing. If the disease reemerges in a certain locale and everyone at a certain plant needs to go home, will another supplier elsewhere be able to pick up the slack? Such dual sourcing might add a bit of supply chain complexity which is a challenge facing the metal fabrication industry. It goes back again to supply chain transparency, not just between a fabricator and its customer, but also wherever value is added within the entire supply chain. Manufacturers might accomplish this in various ways, one of them being by contracting directly with the lower-tiered suppliers, including metal fabricators. Fabricators might still send welded components to an assembler, which then sends them on to the manufacturer. But the assembler might act simply as a toll processor. In this sense, the supply chain would evolve into a kind of network.

Reshoring and Tracking Financial Health

Overseas work has been coming back from Asia for years, and the steel tariffs of 2018 and the COVID-19 pandemic have accelerated those efforts. According to a survey, 64% of manufacturing and industrial companies are likely to nearshore or reshore because of pandemic-related concerns. In that same survey, 53% of businesses reported difficulty receiving COVID-related supply chain information from their Chinese suppliers. A change in geography does change the risk level, however, supplier location is only a piece of the puzzle. Transparency is still the name of the game. An opaque supplier relationship can have negative consequences, whether that supplier is down the street or an ocean away.

Transparency will include information related not only to where components are in the supply chain, but also the financial health of suppliers. An audit might give a snapshot of a supplier’s liquidity, leverage, efficiency, savings due to process automation, and access to cash. But how will this financial situation change over time? Again, demand for such transparency has been building for years, especially in certain industries.

Make vs. Buy

The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to enable more make-versus-buy analyses and evaluations. The variables in the make-versus-buy decision will remain the same, including available suppliers, shipping logistics, and the nature and mix of products being manufactured. But the potential of disease outbreaks or other external shocks around the globe will lead more companies to further scrutinize their decisions. It is likely that the pandemic will not lead to some massive vertical-integration movement. Bringing in a process that is too far outside a manufacturer’s wheelhouse still will not be practical in many cases. This will be particularly true with processes that require certain expertise, like high-end welding and other specialty fabrication processes such as development of pressure vessels.

The Last Chapter

COVID-19 has tested the agility of industrial supply chains. As the economy picks up in a post-pandemic world, it is essential to ensure that the lessons learnt during those hard times are not lost, but used to drive innovations in supply chains going forward. As the saying goes, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and supply chains need to iron out their shortfalls to emerge stronger in the long run!

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