What is Industry 4.0 and how does it work?
What is Industry 4.0?
The term “industry 4.0” was first used at the Hannover Messe exhibition, back in 2011, as “Zukunftsprojekt Industrie 4.0” ─ meaning “project for future Industry 4.0”.
The whole industry 4.0 concept is based on the smart factory that contains the three notions of smart production, smart service and smart energy. These three groups respectively represent the new productive technologies, the computer infrastructures and the systems to monitor energy consumption. Such groups and concepts are at the base of an industry 4.0 factory, without one of them, we could not talk about a 4.0 structure.
What makes a factory part of industry 4.0?
Although the aforementioned concepts are the bases of the 4th industrial revolution, the real cornerstone is found in the Cyberphysics Systems (CPS), that is the whole set of hardware components (machines, PLCs, etc.) and softwares (HMI, SCADA, etc.). When machines and softwares are part of a CPS, they exchange information with each other and can communicate and be connected with other CPS. The connection and communication between different CPS allows the collection and input of production data ─ useful for better production management and an effective traceability .
How does industry 4.0 work?
From the administrative software, orders are sent to the SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition), which translates the orders in a series of data and parameters known as a “recipe”. After the translation from order to recipe, an operator gives confirmation to the production line using an HMI (Human Machine Interface) and the machines start to work following the input parameters and data. During this cycle, the machines keep sending data and information ─ through the PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) to the SCADA, which translates them as “work in progress” for the administrative software. Once the whole process is over, the SCADA will translate this information as “process concluded”.
What is a SCADA?
Moreover the Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition can also run production statistics of the whole plant (amount of assembled pieces, time of use, etc.), to control the efficiency of the plant itself.
All the exchanged data will then be saved in a database, so that an operator can always find them and, if needed, export them in any desired format.
In short, one could think about this data exchange and process, between SCADA, machines and administrative software, like the passage of information and pulses between our brain, all the way through the nervous system, into our muscles.
Our industry 4.0
Ferrazza’s solution (electric cabinets, control panels for industrial automation, application softwares, PLCs, HMIs, SCADA, etc.) allow to:
- guarantee total or partial automation to one or more systems inside a factory;
- have detailed control over production parameters, this also ensures to memorise the complete history of a production process;
- constantly control every key aspect of different plants and trigger alarms, should an anomaly occur. Our customers can also rely on remote assistance, from any part in the world and in any moment;
- read, translate and archive data, so that they can be used in future recipes and processes.
All these functions optimise production and increase the company’s efficiency, allowing it to be a competitive presence in the world market.le.
But our potential for your industry 4.0 does not end here: our know-how ─ developed in more than 30 years of experience ─ and our attention to both quality and details, summed together, are the key to the customised solutions and 360° services that made us leaders in this sector.
Ferrazza follows the customer in every step, from the start-up project to the after sales assistance.