According to the Harvard Business Review, in 1958, the average lifespan of companies listed in Standard and Poor’s 500 was 61 years. By the 1980s it was down to 25 years. Today, it is less than 18 years. The rate of change in the world has increased dramatically due to digital transformation.
Companies across the life sciences industry were disproportionately impacted due to the pandemic. The industry reeled as workplaces became remote overnight. For many, protecting employees came at the expense of effective collaboration. This not only impacted product development and manufacturing, but sales, training, and product servicing, as much of the industry was underprepared to solve challenges traditionally resolved in person in this new remote working environment.
The pandemic has made it clear that the companies who focused on building their digital capabilities in recent years have had a significant advantage in adapting in response to the crisis.
The digital thread
Why do some companies fail to embrace a digital world while others thrive? The organic evolution of processes and technologies has resulted in a disjointed experience within the product lifecycle, from discover and create to make and sell. The solution is the digital thread.
Harnessing the Digital Thread enables seamless data flow throughout the organization, which leads to improvements and benefits throughout the entire operation. The focal point of the digital thread is the digital twin, or the virtual representation of the physical product. The digital twin can be used in design, testing, monitoring, servicing, and other functional areas to augment product management capabilities.
Imagine collaborating in real time across the value chain, validating new lines and processes virtually, simplifying data science and increasing your manufacturing flexibility. Unanticipated disruptive events like COVID-19 have made the digital thread more important than ever.
What is extended reality?
Extended reality (XR) is the visualization and enablement component of a digital thread. Kalypso, a Rockwell Automation company, helps companies leverage extended reality tools to create multiple digital threads - the digital fabric and foundation for Industry 4.0.
Extended reality is a key enabler of digital transformation. As part of the connected enterprise, extended reality uses a mix of wearable and handheld augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), spatial computing and virtual reality (VR) tools to overlay additional digital information into how work gets done, enabling more efficient learning, remote working and significant business benefits.
Bringing digital information into view for product manufacturing, user training and service value chain, extended reality leverages 3D geometry, audio, video, text and other media from multiple sources, including product lifecycle management systems. This occurs at any point in the product lifecycle from design, testing, quality assurance, even to after product launch.
Extended reality in action
Smart factories, enabled by digital technologies and concepts, may not be as futuristic as you think. More and more companies are seeing real business value from initiatives related to augmented and mixed reality, overall equipment effectiveness, product lifecycle intelligence, and robotic process automation.
The factory of the future is here today. Imagine you are an operations manager walking on the shop floor in the calm minutes before production starts for the day. By switching on your mixed reality smart safety glasses and scanning the floor, you instantly see real time results on several key performance indicators and other metrics overlayed in your field of vision – allowing you to quickly spot any process issues.
A mixed reality system can unlock immense value by making real-time data and information available to everyone, along with many benefits including improved data-based decision making, faster training of new associates, and giving everyone the tools to be a problem solver.
Integrating plant equipment on an Internet of Things (IoT) platform delivers insights into production processes, allowing you to respond quickly and flexibly to meet production deadlines. This production data can be used along with a machine learning algorithm to predict when machine components were likely to breakdown – reducing costly downtime.
This modern digital infrastructure dramatically improves your ability to innovate and deliver. Measuring overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) provides a single metric that factors in the availability, performance and quality of a plant. It is an effective way to measure the improvements of digital transformation initiatives in a plant and set goals for further improvements.
Emulate manufacturing virtually
Virtual commissioning can help you to accelerate your time to quality production. This can be seen in a recent use case where a complete, fully functional digital representation of a Rockwell Automation contactor production line was emulated using Emulate3D digital twin software.
This digital representation was used to learn about the line’s physical constraints and the automation code that controls the process. With virtual commissioning in Emulate3D, you can validate and optimize PLC code without needing to start a single piece of equipment.
Emulating the physical processes enables you to optimize production. Imagine testing ‘what if’ scenarios on your line without risk. Using physics-based modelling software from Ansys, you can test the forces acting on your equipment, and evaluate how speed, temperature, or humidity might affect these forces. This could have massive implications on lifetime maintenance and operating costs for the line.
The value of emulating production for the contractor line comes from the underlying data. Before equipment arrives at the plant, you start to understand how the line operates in different conditions. This knowledge is crucial to building a baseline understanding of line optimization. In addition, capturing the context of data available from your line this early in the process simplifies industrial analytics.
Virtual reality technology has been used to capture key maintenance procedures on the contactor line. These virtual reality experiences created in Vuforia Studio leverage the 3D digital content captured during the product and machine design process. This enables new or reassigned workers to ramp up on their new position in a risk-free, hands-on setting.
With FactoryTalk Smart Object Rockwell Automation has built the capability directly into the control automation layer to capture the OT context of data throughout the digital thread – helping to simplify machine learning. This enables lights-out manufacturing through automated workflows.
For example, if a customer were to order 10,000 contactors, the order would be placed through the Rockwell Automation supply chain. The company’s ERP receives that order and verifies and allocates the raw materials needed to the appropriate plant for manufacture within the requested shipping date. That plant’s MES then automatically schedules the order, books raw materials from stores and assigns them to a manufacturing line to orchestrate production.
The manufacturing line receives line setup parameters from MES and executes the order while providing consumption data back to ERP. This sequence of events demonstrates how the order travels from the customer to the production line, without requiring human intervention.
Transforming productivity
Over the years, Kalypso’s expertise in extended reality technology and solutions has helped many customers improve productivity and efficiency in many areas including:
Collaboration: XR tools allow multiple users to visualize and interact with a product’s digital twin in a real or virtual environment. This helps to reduce development lead time by increasing speed and accuracy in design reviews. Real results show an impressive 80-90% reduction in time for design reviews and a 75-90% reduction in time for quality inspections.
Training: By using virtual and augmented reality tools to guide trainees to understand the working procedures of machinery and maintenance needed in various scenarios, results show a greater than 90% improved first-time operation success rate.
Work instructions: XR tools can be beneficial in helping employees working on plant floor cells to assemble components correctly and in the right order. In fact, Kalypso has shown that extended reality technologies can increase productivity by approximately 10-35%.
Remote service: XR can allow a product to be identified in the field, to gather and provide information, and execute activities related to that product. This helps to ensure effectiveness of service and shared visibility together with employee safety.
Immersive product experiences: XR and VR eliminates the requirement for sales professionals to enter their customers’ sites by providing a virtual product demonstration. It can be used to simulate the spatial configuration and user experiences of products even without their physical presence.
