5 Industry 4.0 applications outside the shop floor

1. Material shipment to customer
Your scheduling software has access to your monitoring system’s database. It knows exactly how many parts have been produced at any given time, and what is the expected date of completion of a work order.

2. Material ordering from vendor
You can automatically order raw material from the vendor. The monitoring system directly tracks production from the machine. Another software module uses this data to update the available raw material, and automatically emails an order to the vendor when the reorder quantity is reached.

3. Part traceability
You can include part traceability in the manufacturing monitoring system. The vendor marks each part raw material (casting, forging, etc.) with a unique serial number engraved on it as bar code or QR code. As each part is loaded onto a machine, its serial number is recorded in the software. If a part is rejected any time for a raw material defect, your software can talk to the vendor’s database and get the serial numbers of other parts that were made in the same batch of castings, so you can check them for the same material defect. This can then be used to track down and replace all parts from the same batch. Your vendor’s software reads this data and deducts the rejected parts from your next invoice value or adds additional parts to the next order quantity. The vendor also uses this data to fix the issue.

4. Logistics
Your scheduling software (that is talking to the monitoring software’s database) can track the position of the truck carrying the shipment of incoming raw material, Possible delays in shipment because of a truck breakdown, traffic jam or accident can be relayed from the truck driver’s terminal. The software can estimate the time of its arrival, and plan production accordingly. Your vendor’s software too has access to this same data, and can take a decision (or inform people who can take a decision) to send another consignment on an alternative route. Similarly, your customers can know the date of completion of a work order and your expected shipment date, track your trucks and know when the material is going to arrive at their works. This is one of the Industry 4.0 examples that makes a big difference in Just In Time (JIT) production.

5. Maintenance
If your machines are maintained by an outside firm, the instant a machine breaks down, the monitoring system can send an SMS and email alert to the concerned person. You can control spares parts inventory or automatically order spares for preventive and predictive maintenance, based on machine running hours and condition monitoring.  None of these Industry 4.0 applications is science fiction or highly complex, and is easy to implement with Leanworx Cloud Industry 4.0 system. Leanworx’s Cloud tracks machine activity in real time (which means the instant any activity occurs), and stores the data in a database on the cloud . You can get any other software like ERP, SPC, Scheduling or logistics to pick up data from Leanworx’s database to perform a variety of other functions automatically. Leanworx’s Cloud is plug-and-play, which means you can get it up and running in minutes, without extensive customization or long installation.