Manufacturing Magazine October 2018 | Page 47

“ Even though we ’ ve been doing automation for several decades , we still have unacceptable levels of waste amongst automated processes ”

— Jason Chester ,
Director of Global Channel Program at InfinityQS
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How do IoT , IIoT and smart monitoring impact manufacturers on their automation journey ? These technologies enable manufacturers to make the transition from process automation to optimisation , the critical distinction as to where manufacturing is heading in the future .
Even though we ’ ve been doing automation for several decades , we still have unacceptable levels of waste amongst automated processes – while some process may be automated , it does not mean they are optimised . To achieve optimisation , we need to monitor processes closely and react to what we observe on a real-time basis .
Previously that cost of improving a process has been pretty high due to the high cost of traditional architectures , such as PLC ’ s and SCADA type solutions . But the commoditisation of IIoT devices coupled with cloud-com-
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