Industry 4.0: the interoperability issues impeding robotics use in smart factories

The push for smart factories, where machines communicate about their various attributes such as production output or anticipated maintenance, is an industry-wide ambition. Aside from production optimisation and energy saving, various environmental legislation from the UK to the EU are forcing the hand of even the least willing to adopt the concept.

Yet, going from an offline to an online factory is a big step. As a result, transformations for such optimisations may be implemented in a piece meal fashion. Then, as more solutions are introduced, getting them to work with existing smart infrastructure proves challenging. Yet, in order to remain competitive in Industry 4.0., and keep up as the world walks towards Industry 5.0., it is a challenge that needs to be met.

“We see the impact of robotics in manufacturing as game-changing,” Tyler Bouchard, Co-founder & CEO of Flexxbotics told IoT Insider. Flexxbotics is a SaaS/Hybrid software solution provider that connects, communicates, and orchestrates robots/cobots and smart factory machinery. Basically, they provide the layer so robots can be compatible with CNC machines, other factory machinery and inspection equipment so everything works seamlessly and securely

“The robots go far beyond simply communicating with the equipment,” explains Bouchard. “The robots command and control the machines, enabling higher yields, more capacity and increased profit per part.”

Application in factories

Unlike human staff, robots can run continuously, performing with consistent speed and accuracy around the clock. When robots are combined with orchestration capabilities, they enable true “lights out” production for much greater efficiency and productivity than previously possible.

“Leading manufacturers’ adoption of robot-driven manufacturing is providing efficiency and productivity gains that show up in bottom line profitability,” asserts Bouchard.

Solutions such as Flexxbotics’ conduct the robots through the production workflow, and communicating with the machines, it ascertains and uses the results from automated inspections to make real-time adjustments to the processing instructions in the machines’ programs for autonomous process control. Essentially, this means that robots are not only capable of running production tasks in the factory but can collect data for analytics from all the machines, including automated inspections. Automated inspection equipment effectively becomes the “eyes & ears” of the robots providing the necessary information to control smart factory machinery for continuous operation.

The robots are thus proactively updating the machines’ processing instructions to correct problems before they occur. Using results from automated inspections, solutions such as Flexxbotics instructs the robots to make real-time adjustments to offset values in the CNC’s programs for autonomous process control. Decisions such as root cause analysis and troubleshooting are greatly enhanced by having comprehensive data all readily available together for business intelligence.

It’s for reasons like this that Bouchard believes “robots are poised to take centre stage in the smart factory, and will redefine the production operations as they do.” Yet, if the ‘bottom-line benefits’ are clear, what is holding some companies back in deploying these solutions?

Challenges in implementation

As Bouchard explains: “Many robotic digitalisation initiatives breakdown in the manufacturing workcell because the robots are not connected and cannot communicate with the machinery due to interfacing complexity and incompatibilities.”  

This lack of robot integration into the production process means they can be left working unintelligently and unaffected by changes happening elsewhere on the production line, resulting in limited efficiency gains, unexpected quality issues, and unplanned downtime.

Flexxbotics, in its understanding of this issue, has created FlexxCORE that it believes addresses the main issues of integration and provide support for connecting and coordinating robots with existing automation equipment and IT systems. These include protocol compatibility, to address the wide range of protocols including open standards that the system runs on; full command & control, which handles bidirectional communication, transform and routing capabilities for the robots and machines connected, and an open hybrid architecture, that runs both online and offline so that production continues regardless of internet access, and compatibility with existing systems in the smart factory such as IIoT, MES, DNC, SCADA/HMI etc.

By providing universal connectivity and interoperability between robots and machines, other factory machinery, inspection equipment, IT and business system everything can work seamlessly and securely.

Robots’ place in industry 5.0.

Although Industry 4.0. is well underway, with the recent explosion of AI, talks of Industry 5.0. are increasing. Robotics, play a big part in that next revolution. But in a somewhat different capacity. Where Industry 4.0 focused on technologies such as IoT and big data, Industry 5.0 seeks to add human, environmental and social aspects back into the equation. Therefore, we might be more inclined to see ‘cobots’ than robots in the factory of the future. How then, do robotic solutions work with humans as opposed to machinery sending data to them?

With safety being one big concern with robots working alongside humans, Flexxbotics has pre-empted that issue: “Flexxbotics adaptability provides the ability to adjust protective stop conditional triggers to safeguard for human personnel in a wide range of environments,” Bouchard elaborates.

Equally, with new technology like AI, comes more issues of interoperability. “Moving forward, we believe the continued development of AI will be applied to an endless series of individual use cases for very specific purposes across the smart factory.,” says Bouchard. “Today’s robots/cobots – and in the not too distant future humanoid robots – will be the conductors that orchestrate Industry 4.0 production. The robots will need to talk directly to the factory equipment to optimally operate “lights out” continuous operations.”

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