Previous posts have talked a lot about what to expect in the Fraunhofer Future Packaging Production line. We’ve talked about the importance of having a “critical mass” of adoption from the industry in order to help OML get the push it needs to make a real change in the industry. We’ve also talked a lot about planning to have the world’s first IoT live public demo with OML.
What happened in real life, exceeded our expectations, and we believe that we are now on the right track to getting that “critical mass” of adoption and bringing this new standard, and Industry 4.0 to life.
So what did we have in there?
We set up an entire line, showing a live demonstration of a full SMT manufacturing process, operating entirely in an IoT environment, and creating a digital thread of the entire manufacturing process. Valor IoT Manufacturing Data Acquisition Unit (DAU) Devices were placed next to every machine in the line and Valor IoT Manufacturing System Processing Unit (SPU) Devices were connected to record the line as a whole. All the machines were communicating with the Valor IoT devices in its own language, and a dashboard providing meaningful real-time information, such as utilization and pick-up errors, was displayed over each of the machines, showing visitors real-time line performance information and the board placement quality.
Outside the line, you could see additional Manufacturing Analytics that included historical data with advanced analysis capabilities. This information allows drilling for insights by receiving an intuitive display of results, using graphs and detailed text listings of search results.
The real power of OML was seen in this last dashboard, showcasing the entire digital thread. Blank screens for each machine in the line began gradually filling with meaningful information. The Valor IoT Manufacturing DAU devices took the outputs from the different machines, each speaking its own language, and neutralized it through the new, single language of OML.
We had all extremely varied manufacturing line without any common language, autonomously transforming into an actual, meaningful, factory level dashboard. Using OML, we actually had a true insight into how a factory operates, a crucial first step in bringing Industry 4.0 to life.
If you have been to the Fraunhofer Future Packaging Production Line and want to share your thoughts and experience, we want to hear about! Remember you can always ask questions and raise discussions through our community forum!
And finally, to read more about how we experienced the Fraunhofer Future Packaging Production Line, read this article on EMSNow and this white paper.
Thank you all for being a part of turning this vision into reality.
Danit Atar
