Often Industry 4.0 gets equated to “Data availability anywhere anytime”, “Data Automation” and “Control Automation” involving Smart Sensors and Predictive and Adaptive Feedback based control but all this has been there in some form, well before the idea of Industry 4.0 came in vogue.
The major benefits of Industry 4.0 hinge around “What more could be done with the Big Data now being / to be available, that was heretofore not possible”
- Any information that is “recorded”, “shared” and / or “archived” for wider and longer term use, becomes Data
- A signal / reading of position, temperature, pressure, speed, force coming from a Sensor or Instrument is certainly an “information”, if it stays within the device or controller and used for real time process control locally ;it does not become Data …BUT ….when it is recorded, archived and shared across, than it becomes Data
- “Spooled Data” is just a recording which may be stored, retrieved and replayed in the same way, in same sequence without any change…. Information content does not change.
- DATABASE is the structure where Data gets stored and for Intelligent retrieval conventionally “Structured Query Logic ( SQL )” compatibility was considered as important.
- With Big Data NO-SQL or “Not just SQL” based intelligent retrieval has become an important new normal
- Data when organized , processed, filtered leads to “Information” and information when analysed becomes “Intelligence / Learning” so if more Data gets appropriately analysed …it leads to more “Intelligence / Learning”
- Data analytics include methods like “Data Mining” , “Regression Analysis” and “Multivariate Analysis” to extract more Information from archived Data which when analysed leads to more “Intelligence/ Learning”
More Intelligence for decision making and for taking Predictive and Adaptive Corrections will make Manufacturing Organizations more competent, agile and responsive and that would pave the way for significant tangible benefits as well as survival in coming era.
AVINASH KHARE
Advisor, IMTMA