Manufacturing Magazine August 2018 | Page 17

Connected machinery
send someone down to look at one issue . This leads to time and cost savings ,” she says . broadest service network and offering in the industry . Automated IoT connectivity management has allowed the company ’ s service offering to move beyond product installation and setup to continuous equipment monitoring , troubleshooting , diagnostics , maintenance and more . “ With the Internet of Things it ’ s possible to get a snapshot of what ’ s going on right now . Real-time actionable information can then form the basis for new services ,” adds Bertil Thorvaldsson , Product Manager at ABB .

Connected machinery

Bui ’ s final point is based around the concept that manufacturing businesses are trying to understand how often and how much their machines produce for them . Crucially , this data could play a pivotal role in future negotiations with equipment manufacturers .
“ This connected equipment collects all that data , and that ’ s great for remote monitoring , but as a plant owner you don ’ t just want to send it back to the manufacturer ,” she says . “ This information is really important because when contract negotiations come around you can say ‘ here ’ s how your machines work for me and here ’ s how dependent I am on them . Therefore , I need to negotiate different terms ’.”
Clearly the future of data collection in manufacturing is changing rapidly but , if deployed correctly , the right equipment in the right place at the right time will pay tangible dividends .
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