BFPA Directory 2019

Digital transformation in the real world digitalisation that is more akin to the whole journey. Certainly, more and more people are on the journey of digitalising because the Industry 4.0 vision regarding much greater levels of connectivity between human and machine is so strong and the benefits to be had are so compelling – better product design, greater machine uptime, better maintenance, repair and overhaul and a more efficient supply chain regime; with all the resultant business/financial and operational benefits to be had. Digital twin The use of digital engineering tools and software to select, configure, size, document and so on is becoming more and more prevalent, and out of this we are starting to build the first stages of the digital twin. If you digitally select these products you create 3-D CAD drawings and EPLAN schematics and capture all the catalogue information about that product in a data file. Now, you have the basis of what is called the admin shell which is the foundation of the digital twin. These products are also becoming smart products with things such as sensors built in. In the case of Festo, we have our own gateway to the Cloud through which we can connect our smart devices to the Festo Microsoft Azure, Siemens MindSphere, Rockwell FactoryTalk and other open Cloud platforms. Stepping stone Festo is currently offering this through pre-configured dashboards in order to make it really easy for companies to install and use. However, that is only a stepping stone because what people will need to be able to do increasingly in the future is extract that data (which we have made smart data) and then transfer it into their own world, either hosted on something like a MindSphere or, in the case of some of the larger companies, even on their own Cloud platform. I anticipate that major companies in the food and automotive sectors are going to want their own Clouds not just for security reasons but also for control purposes because they want the ownership of the whole technology, recognising that could eliminate possible discussions around who owns the data. Digital transformation is definitely taking place, it’s just a case of waiting a little longer for related concepts such as Industry 4.0 to be more fully realised. Evolving landscape www.bfpa.co.uk 41 By Steve Sands, Head of Product Management, Festo. Digital transformation is still an evolving landscape and I personally do not believe it is possible for anybody to have fully implemented Industry 4.0. This is because the infrastructure required isn’t fully in place yet, so what has to happen is a whole series of connected products and technologies have to come together to develop these products against the Industry 4.0 vision. Then, for truly open communications we can start to tie these things together, extract the data and make better use of it. So, in my view we are still at the very early stages of Industry 4.0; I don’t believe we are at the point where many companies are actually in the position to say that they are realising the benefits. I think those who are saying they are doing it and have got the benefits to prove it are actually doing an Industry 3.0 job well rather than something that is more akin to Industry 4.0. In other words, they may be making good use of the data they have on premise and are connecting up their machines and are therefore increasing their flexibility. Historic trends Industry 3.0 could, for example, be about using PCs or other storage devices to collect data related to machinery used on the shop floor. This data might be used to plot historic trends regarding machine usage and when particular parts have been replaced. Industry 4.0, however, would recognise the importance not only of historic data but also predictive data in order to better anticipate when parts are likely to need replacing or when the optimum time would be for a service or more in-depth maintenance between production schedules etc. So, the vision of Industry 4.0 takes things so much further, to a level of