Is Automation, IoT, and Data Sharing all we need?
I read with interest Willy Shih’s (Professor of Management Practice at Harvard) and Helmuth Ludwig’s (EVP at Siemens PLM Software) article in the Harvard Business Review on the Biggest Challenges of Data-Driven Manufacturing. In it, they discuss the idea that Data-Driven Manufacturing and the widespread deployment of low-cost sensors connected to the Internet (the so-called Internet of Things or IoT) will be the next wave driving efficient and responsive production systems, but that we’re in a somewhat hyped stage and managers will need to understand some of the key challenges associated with the paradigm shifts.
I couldn’t agree more, but I wanted to refine and somewhat shift some of the challenges they’ve identified. As exciting as the IoT is, I am not sure it is really the main driver to the next stage of “efficient and responsive” production. Or at the least, I’m not sure it’s the path to grow the efficiency and business of most our manufacturers and job shops related to CNC machining.
Shih and Ludwig identify the following challenges:
- A Move from Time-Triggered to Event-Triggered Control Systems
- A Need for a Unified Data Model that delivers Data Sharing, Not Just Data Exchange
- The Challenge of Integrating Legacy Systems
- Security Challenges once we connect everything to the Internet
It’s the first three areas coupled with the question of whether we should let the oh-so-trendy IoT tail wag the dog that I want to talk about. We’ll talk a bit about that fourth area of security too, but in a somewhat different light that will be more obvious. I want to drill down on each topic in turn so we can keep continuity and have a discussion around the original author’s ideas.
Moving From Time-Triggered to Event-Triggered Control Systems
Lean Manufacturing is Event-Driven…
I read this and my immediate reaction is to wonder whatever happened to Lean Manufacturing? Wouldn’t a key definition of Lean Manufacturing’s precepts be that Manufacturing be Event-Triggered and not Time-Triggered?
From this perspective, I welcome organizations coming to an Event-Triggered perspective, but I would encourage them not to require IoT as the catalyst. Lean Manufacturing has made sense long before IoT was even a thing (not clear it is even today quite yet a thing). It’s not a tremendously easy transition to make, but it is a transition that many have made, that is well understood, and that we can find many resources to help us with. It’s costs and benefits are readily quantifiable based on the work of others.
We don’t even need a truckload of expensive new software nor shiny IoT gadgets to make it happen. Toyota and many others since managed to get there with humble Kanban Cards and other techniques. If you’re not familiar with these things, check out CNCCookbook’s multi-part article series that introduces you to Lean Manufacturing. It won’t take long to get oriented to these ideas and understand why they’ve been so valuable to so many for so long.
Perhaps there really is nothing much new under the sun.
Unified Data Model that delivers Data Sharing, Not Just Data Exchange
Most product design and manufacturing operations have benefited extensively from computerization: from ERP systems and computer-aided design, to engineering analysis and simulation programs that enable virtual prototyping, to manufacturing execution systems and automation design, all the way down to robotic automation systems on the factory floor and in materials handling. Most investments over the last three decades have gone into point solutions for design and manufacturing, and the integration of the “transaction oriented” ERP systems. Once a design was finalized, manufacturing used the engineering bill of materials and manually added relevant manufacturing (manufacturing bill of materials) and process data (process bill of materials). But a major challenge arises from the fact that because these systems were designed independently, they weren’t designed originally to talk to each other.
Yes! That! I will paraphrase the quote:
We built point solutions around specific Design Office and Shop Floor problems. At the same time we built ERP solutions that were “transaction oriented”. In other words, they were mostly useful to the Bean Counters and didn’t really serve the needs of the actual Manufacturing Process.
More modules, or just better data sharing among modules we already have?
But that leads to a bigger question: What is needed to serve the needs of the larger Manufacturing Process? What will turbocharge the optimization and efficiency of that process? The authors seem to argue that the problem is things like propagating changes to Bill of Materials upstream. If only we could tie all these point solutions together, we would have the answer. If only we could share data, is their watchword.
I want to offer a dissenting opinion. Sharing data is all fine and well, but it will only make somewhat more efficient the processes we already have in place. It is therefore an evolutionary step. It’s not clear to me that making data sharing easier has ever resulted in Revolutionary Progress throughout the course of Enterprise Software.
Let me say that again, and more emphatically:
It is not clear to me that sharing data has ever resulted in Revolutionary Progress for Enterprise Software.
It may be that Manufacturing is so fundamentally different that data sharing will revolutionize it, but I don’t think so, having been around multiple Enterprise Software tracks as well as Manufacturing.
Here’s what does consistently revolutionize the Enterprise: entirely new application categories that simulate, analyze, and automate workflows that were never addressed by existing applications.
I submit that we have a huge opportunity to do that facing us in Manufacturing. We’ve barely scratched the surface, in fact. If we look at perhaps he most mature ecosystems of application categories in Enterprise Software today, there are 3 categories:
- Accounting, including ERP
- Sales and Marketing, including CRM
- HR
Everything else, including Manufacturing, is nowhere close to being as mature in terms of delivering complete, off-the-shelf, and sophisticated Best Practices solutions to anyone that wants to pay for a solution across all categories from the Global 2000 to small business.
The Integration of Legacy Systems
If only we could integrate our Legacy Systems…
When all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail. I see this argument about the challenge of Integrating Legacy Systems as stemming largely from the perspective that our biggest opportunity comes from Data Sharing. That implies all the necessary systems are in place and that Legacy Integrations of systems never designed for graceful Data Sharing is a big challenge.
But, if you agree with my view that we have yet to even build the software for the vast majority of the processes, then Legacy Systems are not a problem because there aren’t any. The Legacy Systems we must replace and integrate with are pencil and paper ad hoc systems. They’re emails and phone calls between Design Offices and Shop Floors.
In short, when we build this next generation of applications, we will have the opportunity to take stock of integration opportunities and build them in from the get-go.
Security Challenges
Security: Always a Challenge to be Reckoned With!
If progress is predicated on IoT–thousands of inexpensive sensors and other devices all connected to the Internet, security is going to be a boondoggle, there is no question. But how much will the IoT really drive out future in Manufacturing? Do we really foresee attaching these sensors to raw aluminum and titanium so it can be tracked as it is placed on CNC machines for work? Is that really going to make us any more efficient?
OK, how about putting said CNC machines themselves into service as smarter devices that can comminicate sensor results as needed? Is there value in doing that over the Internet, or are we just as happy using dedicated wired and wireless networks inside the Shop Floor? I submit the latter is plenty good enough and we’re already well in control of how to manage that approach. We may want to up our security further there, but that’s okay.
As far as the wave of new applications I suggest, those will most likely be Cloud applications–the world isn’t financing new development of much else any more. As a result, it’s fair to consider the security ramifications there. But this is an entirely different security challenge than the one of “extremely fine-grained control and monitoring” mentioned in the Harvard article. I’m not that sure we need to tackle the latter at all.
Organizations today are used to centralizing access to the Internet and shielding it with the appropriate Firewalls and other safeguards. Inside the Firewall, physical security is important. This is again well understood and does not represent some new paradigm or challenge that has to be rediscovered. We need merely decide this is the model we want for our IoT activities and apply the existing protocols appropriately.
The same is true for that next generation of applications that will be Cloud-Based.
Conclusion
This is a two-part series. In Part 2, I want to talk about that vision for entirely new applications. What might they be? I have some very concrete ideas I want to share and get your feedback on. Stay tuned for the second installment. If you haven’t already subscribed to our weekly newsletter, be sure you don’t miss out. There is a sign up form directly below and joining it will give you not only the weekly newsletter, but access to some really special content that only our most Loyal Readers have access to.
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Recently updated on May 2nd, 2023 at 03:01 pm
Bob is responsible for the development and implementation of the popular G-Wizard CNC Software. Bob is also the founder of CNCCookbook, the largest CNC-related blog on the Internet.
Hi Bob
I’m involved in three of the fields that you mentioned in this article.
Systems integration, IoT and Security.
My main focus in my job is to integrate different legacy systems with each other so that data can be shared, or more easily be shared, by these systems. One of the main roadblocks to new systems is that the corporations have millions invested in their current legacy systems and that these systems are very much integrated with how they do business. Some of the corporations that I work with will have to re-invent their whole business to be able to use the new highly integrated cloud based systems. The sad fact is that the writing is on the wall and that they will have to make the changes to stay relevant in their field of business and that the legacy systems are holding them back from making the change (to both their mind-set as well as their business systems).
Our moto at the company that I work for is to be disruptive on all levels. We disrupt the market with radical new ways of approaching problems, disrupt our client way of business with complete outside of the box thinking etc.
I’m also involved with IoT and I agree with you that the field is very much in an over hyped state at the moment. We have had remote sensors reporting into dedicated systems for ages. IoT has made the sensors more intelligent and the internet has made it easier for these sensors to report to their host systems but as you said, there is not much that is new under the sun. IoT in my view is not something new but an evolution from older, dedicated legacy systems. The local dedicated wired and wireless networks in the shop is still needed to get the data out to the cloud and for IoT to do their job, so don’t scrap them yet.
IoT does have a lot of real world usability. For instance, intelligent sensors build into the tankers transporting fuel on the railways. These sensors monitor the fuel levels in these transport tankers. When they sense the fuel level dropping they check sensors on the outlet to see if they are connected to an intelligent and valid discharge port. These ports at the fuel depots also have their own IoT devises. The two devices will then compare notes on how much fuel should be offloaded against what was really offloaded. They will both connect to the cloud and report their GPS position, TankerID, Discharge port ID, current time, if the train is moving or not and how much of the fuel volume was discharged independantly form each other. This data is also independent of the normal transaction system and is used to ratify the normal data. Their main function however is to monitor illegal discharge of fuel. We can see if fuel is always lost when the train slows down for a junction or when it is waiting on route for the track ahead to clear. The transporter that we are dealing with loses as much as 20% of their shipment every year that they have no idea where it is lost. If you take that a single train can transport upwards of a million liters of fuel then 20% present is 200,000 liters gone missing. As they can only bill for what they actually deliver then it is a huge operational loss that they simply have to absorb.
I do agree that IoT is not a new magic hammer that will hit all nails and that it will not be needed everywhere but it definitely has its role to play in a bigger arena.
On security I will only say that it is much worse than what most people realize. Nobody are willing to admit how much they are under hacker attacks as it will affect client confidence. At one of our banks that I used to work for we recorded upwards of a thousand hacking attempts per day, every day, and that was 9 years ago. We had whole server farms dedicated to stop or block these attacks on the internet banking portals. We had server farms watching over other server farm watching the internet banking portals for illegal activity. And as I said, that was nine years ago, I wouldn’t even want to know what their statistics are like now.
I can’t comment on the security issues we are currently facing on cloud portals etc. and what our response to it is as that is very sensitive information. What I can say is that things are not as secure as what most people would like to believe.
Regards
Endlesshunt
Hi Bob
I’m involved in three of the fields that you mentioned in this article.
Systems integration, IoT and Security.
My main focus in my job is to integrate different legacy systems with each other so that data can be shared, or more easily be shared, by these systems. One of the main roadblocks to new systems is that the corporations have millions invested in their current legacy systems and that these systems are very much integrated with how they do business. Some of the corporations that I work with will have to re-invent their whole business to be able to use the new highly integrated cloud based systems. The sad fact is that the writing is on the wall and that they will have to make the changes to stay relevant in their field of business and that the legacy systems are holding them back from making the change (to both their mind-set as well as their business systems).
Our moto at the company that I work for is to be disruptive on all levels. We disrupt the market with radical new ways of approaching problems, disrupt our client way of business with complete outside of the box thinking etc.
I’m also involved with IoT and I agree with you that the field is very much in an over hyped state at the moment. We have had remote sensors reporting into dedicated systems for ages. IoT has made the sensors more intelligent and the internet has made it easier for these sensors to report to their host systems but as you said, there is not much that is new under the sun. IoT in my view is not something new but an evolution from older, dedicated legacy systems. The local dedicated wired and wireless networks in the shop is still needed to get the data out to the cloud and for IoT to do their job, so don’t scrap them yet.
IoT does have a lot of real world usability. For instance, intelligent sensors build into the tankers transporting fuel on the railways. These sensors monitor the fuel levels in these transport tankers. When they sense the fuel level dropping they check sensors on the outlet to see if they are connected to an intelligent and valid discharge port. These ports at the fuel depots also have their own IoT devises. The two devices will then compare notes on how much fuel should be offloaded against what was really offloaded. They will both connect to the cloud and report their GPS position, TankerID, Discharge port ID, current time, if the train is moving or not and how much of the fuel volume was discharged independantly form each other. This data is also independent of the normal transaction system and is used to ratify the normal data. Their main function however is to monitor illegal discharge of fuel. We can see if fuel is always lost when the train slows down for a junction or when it is waiting on route for the track ahead to clear. The transporter that we are dealing with loses as much as 20% of their shipment every year that they have no idea where it is lost. If you take that a single train can transport upwards of a million liters of fuel then 20% present is 200,000 liters gone missing. As they can only bill for what they actually deliver then it is a huge operational loss that they simply have to absorb.
I do agree that IoT is not a new magic hammer that will hit all nails and that it will not be needed everywhere but it definitely has its role to play in a bigger arena.
On security I will only say that it is much worse than what most people realize. Nobody are willing to admit how much they are under hacker attacks as it will affect client confidence. At one of our banks that I used to work for we recorded upwards of a thousand hacking attempts per day, every day, and that was 9 years ago. We had whole server farms dedicated to stop or block these attacks on the internet banking portals. We had server farms watching over other server farm watching the internet banking portals for illegal activity. And as I said, that was nine years ago, I wouldn’t even want to know what their statistics are like now.
I can’t comment on the security issues we are currently facing on cloud portals etc. and what our response to it is as that is very sensitive information. What I can say is that things are not as secure as what most people would like to believe.
Regards
Endlesshunt
The value in putting the data on the Internet is that it allows for people to see the data from any location. Vendors and others in the supply chain can have access to the data if you choose which can make things more efficient.
Cheryl, yes of course, but let’s separate that value from how it is implemented. Whether the IoT device needs to be directly connected to the Internet and therefore each device must be individually responsible for its own security or whether said devices are only connected to the internal net and a much more industrial strength server can be responsible for security, you can still provide access via the Internet for those who need it. And realistically, does most everyone need it? No, most of the time for these devices they do not need individual access to every device and tag. It is just as well therefore not to offer it.
The value in putting the data on the Internet is that it allows for people to see the data from any location. Vendors and others in the supply chain can have access to the data if you choose which can make things more efficient.
Cheryl, yes of course, but let’s separate that value from how it is implemented. Whether the IoT device needs to be directly connected to the Internet and therefore each device must be individually responsible for its own security or whether said devices are only connected to the internal net and a much more industrial strength server can be responsible for security, you can still provide access via the Internet for those who need it. And realistically, does most everyone need it? No, most of the time for these devices they do not need individual access to every device and tag. It is just as well therefore not to offer it.