(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] Digi-Key presents Factory Tomorrow,
a three-part series highlighting the latest innovations
in industrial automation across robotics,
sensors, and connectivity,
and new ways to obtain data,
all leading towards changes that enhance
and improve manufacturing across all industries.
- [Matthew] Allowing people in the workforce
to correct any issues or fix problems
or affect the bottom line by having access to that data
and making it available.
- Future factories are fast, efficient and sustainable.
- [Thomas] The future of manufacturing mechanisms
is very much about data, value added data
and what we can do out of this.
- [Narrator] Powered by Weidmuller, Banner Engineering
and Supplyframe.
In episode one,
we look at how sensors and new forms of data collection
are transforming the factory floor of tomorrow.
For our first stop,
we visit Banner Engineering in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
A company producing leading sensor,
automation and collaborative solutions
for factories across the globe.
Matthew Negaard of Banner engineering
shares with us his vision for future factories
that leverage new forms of data
for increased visibility and awareness.
- I think the theme to me and future factories overall
is access to data.
Relevant access to data that
is already available for machines
or not available, it's contained inside machines,
or finding gaps in intelligence,
in adding sensors to equipment.
To get better insights to machine health,
to productivity, to current status of one's environment.
But overall, all of those,
that context of data help make better decisions
for factory owners,
for process owners, for maintenance people,
for everybody up and down the chain.
So I think the availability and access to data,
whether it existing or future,
is mainly what drives a lot of the innovation
happening right now, not only in products,
but in people and processes.
And that's done through a number of different ways
with smart sensors, smart edge devices,
cloud infrastructure,
but coming together and making sure they all work,
That allows customers to trade on machine health
at the edge.
And they take that data at the edge
and they take it into their localized MES solutions
or SCADA systems and make decisions based upon that.
Basically, where is it most efficient to process the data?
What's the best for that job.
- [Narrator] As part of her role,
helping customers pinpoint sensor and safety solutions,
Dana Holmes describes how automation presents opportunities
for enhanced productivity and industrial applications.
- We do a lot of products that definitely give visual cues,
whether it be for level detection or product positioning,
or anything, it's really easy.
I think we've all kind of become numb to sounds.
So you're hearing an alarm go off,
over and over and over and you tend to ignore it.
So what we've done is we've made it,
so a lot of our products can integrate directly
into our lighting products.
Basically they take that sensor data
directly to a lighting product.
And so it can tell you how close
you're getting to something,
or it can tell you my level is getting too high
or my level is getting too low.
And so an operator on the factory floor
can just kind of give it a look and go, okay, I'm good.
We're still in the green or, you know what?
We've got a red or yellow something's going on.
I got to get over there and take care of something.
I think factories are going to continue
to become more and more automated,
especially as our devices get
smarter and smarter and smarter,
and we can convey more information.
And we can convey more information that's actually important
and timely to an operator or to a factory.
What is the bare minimum?
What do you actually need to make your plant function
at a higher level?
And I think that's important versus kind of over specking
or getting too much information.
- [Narrator] Eric Halvorson of Digi-Key electronics
explains how the company is utilizing new forms of data
to ensure the productivity of their cutting edge warehouse.
- When I think about future factories,
I think about smarter solutions,
giving us the ability to be more agile,
to be more productive and be more efficient
and to produce higher quality products.
So the key trends we see
in automation factories of the future,
are condition-based monitoring.
We see new solutions for predictive maintenance
rather than plant managers having to schedule maintenance
for a line down situation or motors.
We can actually see all the different data points
of that particular device,
schedule maintenance for it and get it back online,
with minimum waste and minimum loss of revenue.
So IIOT and conductivity play a factor in modern factories
through giving the ability to plant managers,
to monitor and view and control all aspects
of the manufacturing process,
whether it's advanced robotics or motors,
sensors, controllers,
they can view each aspect and each data point
and make their corrections as necessary.
- [Narrator] Next, Dr. Thomas Burger of Weidmuller joins us
from the company's headquarters in Germany,
to explain the ongoing cultural shift among manufacturers,
leading towards accelerated adoption of new technology.
- [Thomas] The future of manufacturing mechanisms
is very much about data, value out of data
and what we can do out of this.
So the reason is very simple,
because all or new coming up in the use cases,
are very much proven about IOT,
are very much driven about analytics,
about artificial intelligence
and all of these things are based off data.
And at the end, the value of coming out of data
and therefore we see very much
and not only sensors that are required for data acquisition.
Not only processes on communication levels that are required
to transmit any data and not only analysis
that is required to the very end to make an additional value
out of these data.
We see everything consistently required
for these kinds of solutions.
More and more user centric develop.
And that's the clear goal, needs to be very easy
to use these complex technologies.
At the very end, it brings more efficiency to them,
to manufacturing processes,
but also it brings a huge impact
to a better working environment.
Me personally, I'm convinced there's no need
to fear anything of these new technologies
because a human being is always in the middle
of the considerations,
is always in the middle of user experience discussions.
And therefore I'm convinced it even brings everything
to a better world for working forces.
- [Narrator] As demand for smarter, safer,
and more efficient manufacturing continues to rise.
Data is critical for new solutions,
that provide deeper insights into every aspect,
of the factory floor.
In our next episode,
we chronicle the rise of robotics
in the manufacturing industry
and how new designs collaborate alongside human workers,
on the factory floor
to create new, high-quality job opportunities
across Factory Tomorrow.
(upbeat music)