Deloitte has launched a pre-configured suite of cloud-based IoT applications designed to accelerate smart factory transformations for companies with manufacturing operations.
Powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) IoT, the Smart Factory Fabric suite of services is aimed at helping industrial companies improve their operational performance and reduce costs.
Deloitte said that its Smart Factory Fabric solution is designed for companies with operations in industries including aerospace; industrial products; pharmaceutical and medical devices; automotive; government; high tech; oil, gas and chemicals; and power and utilities.
“For companies with complex manufacturing operations, implementing a smart factory solution at industrial scale can be daunting, but imperative for those who wish to remain competitive today. That’s why we’ve worked with AWS on a smart factory offering,” said Andy Daecher, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP and Deloitte Digital IoT U.S. practice lead.
“Services like AWS IoT Greengrass, AWS IoT Analytics, and AWS IoT Events are designed to offer increased machine connectivity, real-time streaming data ingestion, and analytics to drive automation throughout the shop floor. This will advance manufacturing operations and fulfill a vision of a truly integrated, digital smart factory,” said Dirk Didascalou, vice president, AWS IoT, Amazon Web Services.
Deloitte said that Smart Factory Fabric capabilities include:
-Real-time optimization of shop floor performance, which allows operators to identify overall equipment effectiveness that quantifies the availability, performance, quality and location of each asset and production line. This also means better machine utilization and optimizes production capacity, utilization, and scheduling.
-Visibility and analytics across a network of factory operations: Rapidly connecting devices enables the collection of streaming, transactional and machine status data onto AWS, Deloitte said, and provides the ability to create common asset and process models. Machine health monitoring and trending allows a shift from calendar-based to condition-based and predictive maintenance; consistent factory, asset and line performance analysis across plants activates opportunities for optimization.
-Dynamic workforce management: Enables the scheduling of shop floor resources based on machine, inventory, and labor constraints. It also provides visibility into real-time inventory and tools/asset positions and workforce status; delivers dynamic crew planning and work allocation including risk-based (stochastic) materials requirement planning (MRP), predictive line-of-business (LOB) management, risk-adjusted span and lead time management.
Deloitte said it worked with AWS to help Spirit AeroSystems, a large aerostructures manufacturer, improve visibility into the parts moving through their production line. By combining industrial IoT (IIoT) technology, for real-time inventory, work in process (WIP) status, and machine performance data, with ERP data and supplier inventory data in the cloud, Deloitte used AWS to apply advanced algorithms to dynamically schedule the production facility and automated material movement.
Terry George, Spirit Aerostructures’ vice president of advanced manufacturing strategy, said: “In collaboration with Deloitte and AWS, we’re working to quickly implement smart factory solutions into our manufacturing operations that will lead to an increase in production throughput, asset utilization, while reducing inventory.”
