Pune, India 20 October 2020

Digital transformations in manufacturing are being witnessed and with the advent of Industry 4.0, plastic component manufacturers may even produce small batch sizes’ economically.

The convergence of Industry 4.0 and the industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) has directed smart factories’ development. Today, the cyber-physical systems leverage IIoT technologies to monitor physical manufacturing processes and build virtual copies of the physical world to perform analyses and automate decision-making. To execute these extensive processes, enormous data gets generated, which has pressed upon the need to move towards cloud management. 

With its sheer effectiveness to improve competitiveness and productivity by leaps and bounds, plastic manufacturers understand the need to embrace Industry 4.0. 

Plastic manufacturing w.r.t Industrial revolution 4.0 signals an era of better visibility and improved performance of a plant. It also assists in the interlinking of internal processes and departments of a plastic component manufacturing unit i.e. overall supply chain management. 

What are the immediate benefits of 4.0 on plastic processing? 

If you’re looking to learn about significant opportunities that Industry 4.0 may bring for the plastic component units is as follows:

• Customized parts
• Quick production of individualized parts
• Shortening of development time
• Reducing setup and startup times

These core capabilities altogether equip the manufacturers with an opportunity to produce batch size 1 at the same cost as mass production. Let’s now learn the in-depth benefits of adopting Industry 4.0.

 

Benefits that plastic component manufacturers derive

 

1) Production Monitoring & real-time Insights

Introduction to Industry 4.0 assists manufacturers in creating a cyber-physical environment by converging operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT). 

Intuitive cloud-based software replacing manual inventory control effectively assists in automated inventory monitoring, conclusively improving overall plant performance. With the implementation of such modern systems, the plant throughput can also be monitored conveniently. These software and tools are designed to automatically keep track of inventory purchase and optimization of the processes. Also, if any connected tool demands repurchase or repair; the cyber-physical system would send a notification automatically for the same. 

Implementation of such systems not only eliminates repeatability and human errors but also improves production monitoring. With these systems installed at their plant, manufacturers can monitor an extensive range of parameters, including downtime quantities of raw materials, production errors, repair time, and much more remotely!

 

2) Maximum Productivity 

Embracing Industry 4.0, along with digital manufacturing, comes with a myriad of benefits for plastic manufacturers, including operational performance, agility, and flexibility. 

In any plastic manufacturing unit, machine uptime is crucial to achieving maximum productivity. In case any machine breaks down, the output would slump. The traditional process of maintaining machines includes scheduled maintenance by third-party vendors, but they’re prone to human errors and are NOT effective in predicting production halting issues. 

Industrial IOT applications make condition-based and predictive maintenance possible. Further, IOT predictive maintenance benefits in monitoring machine health in real-time. Multiple sensors installed help in identifying any specific trend or issue alerts before the failure of equipment. This will help in reducing any bottleneck effect during the production process. Thereby increasing plant productivity.

 

3) Smart IT Integration

Integrating ‘Smartness’ in a plastic component manufacturing unit will make it more connected, agile, transparent, optimized, and proactive. 

Getting a Smart factory lets a manufacturer gain a flexible system that’s capable of self-optimizing performance across the plant. Moreover, it can self adapt to newer conditions in real-time to run the entire production process. 

Not to forget, smart IT integration will help ease the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) reporting by displaying real-time KPIs on the screen to spot any irregularities in the system. 

 

4) Digital Transformation 

Industry 4.0 serves manufacturers with an opportunity to empower employees, optimize production, transform products, connect consumers, and add customized experiences.

It is not just plastic manufacturing units, but the digital transformation has become critical for the success of any other business in the production field. Predictive maintenance with these cyber-physical systems will ensure manufacturers have a future within the industry. 

Technologies such as IoT, machine learning, advanced analytics, and cloud computing make significant transformations in the manufacturing industry. Moreover, they’re reliable and can be installed at lower costs in companies of all sizes. 

So, is there any reason left not to consider embracing cyber-physical systems as an option for your plastic component manufacturing plant? We don’t think so.

 

Conclusion 

Leveraging these cyber-physical systems (CPS) and other modern technology-based tools or software to boost any plastic manufacturing plants’ efficiency and productivity is no longer an advantage, but a necessity. 

Without the introduction of Industry 4.0, traditional plastic manufacturing plants may struggle in mitigating their productiveness and monitoring problems. Production monitoring systems and IOT in manufacturing can optimize the plants to develop a responsive framework that can serve in boosting overall profitability and productivity.