The digital transformation is upon us, and companies are, in growing numbers, turning to advanced manufacturing analytics platforms they can leverage to improve their operations. Whether your organization is ready or not, the time has come to digitize–both customer expectations and increased competition are driving this trend. As it becomes more widespread, manufacturing analytics solutions will be necessary to remain competitive in this industry.
The Digital Transformation and Manufacturing Analytics
The digital transformation is impacting nearly everything—IoT is even in our homes. For manufacturing, it means leveraging digital technologies and big data management tools and using data from IoT pipeline monitoring to improve processes and output. The result is increased efficiency, better quality for output, quicker responses when the market changes, and, ultimately, more profitability.
So what is IIoT and IoT? The Internet of Things (IoT) is a broad category of data collected from physical objects, and IIoT, or the Industrial Internet of Things, is the data collected in industries, like manufacturing, that is then aggregated digitally. Thanks to technological advancements, this data can be collected in real time and can be used to get up-to-the-minute information about manufacturing processes. This type of data is called time series data, and Sightline’s EDM manufacturing analytics software can analyze this overwhelming amount of information to produce visualizations and insight for your team.
What is Time Series Data Analysis?
Time series data is collected repeatedly, usually at a predictable interval, over a period of time. This type of data is everywhere—from weather reports to crime statistics—and is the most common type of data collected through IoT pipeline monitoring systems. In fact, its ubiquity is one of the biggest issues with time series data and why organizations need manufacturing data analysis software. IIoT produces millions of points of data. Only using traditional, spreadsheet-based manufacturing analytics just isn’t strong or fast enough to make the amount of effort and time it takes for data entry to be useful.
Manufacturing analytics solutions can take this huge quantity of data, combine it with historical data, produce insights on the status of current processes and operations, and highlight any patterns that have occurred over time. These manufacturing analytics tools can also send alerts when any anomalies are detected to help avoid unplanned downtime and buy time to act quickly if something happens.
Time series data is the basis of data intelligence, and data intelligence can help predict the future.
The Current Landscape of Data Intelligence
To recap, IIoT is the process of collecting data from physical objects, like manufacturing equipment, and aggregating it digitally. Manufacturing data analytics is the process of analyzing that data to see patterns and detect anomalies. Data intelligence is how manufacturing data analytics software can apply machine learning and artificial intelligence to offer increasingly accurate predictions of future events.
These predictive analytics tools offer numerous benefits, the most significant being the ability to anticipate upcoming changes in capacity, schedule maintenance to maximize operations, and completely eliminate unplanned downtime.
In 2022, we are expecting to see more companies demanding that data intelligence tools for predictive analytics be embedded within manufacturing analytics solutions. Sightline’s EDM manufacturing data analytics software will seamlessly aggregate IoT pipeline monitoring data, analyze it, visualize it, alert you to anomalies, conduct root cause analysis, and leverage AI and machine learning in predictive analytics in near real-time. Data analytics software that has been created specifically for the manufacturing industry should simultaneously detect issues in the moment and alert you to potential issues that could be coming.
Predictive Analytics Tools for Manufacturing
Sightline EDM, a robust advanced manufacturing analytics platform, can use real-time data from sensors and other systems to quickly produce production forecasting reports. It can also offer alerts for any metrics that fall outside acceptable parameters. These customizable reports can offer information on labor availability, repairs, supplies, and logistics—both in the present moment and into the future.
In addition, by combining the real-time data it collects with historical data trends, Sightline EDM can help you establish a baseline on production across facilities and generate easy-to-understand information on requirements for resources based on fluctuations in demand. That means being able to effectively eliminate one of the biggest financial drains a manufacturing organization can face: unplanned downtime. In this case study, an electronics manufacturer cut both downtime and issue response time with Sightline EDM’s predictive analytics tools for manufacturing.
Anomaly Detection
Sightline EDM’s manufacturing analytics tools collate hundreds of OT and IT metrics across production facilities down to the unit or process level. It unifies and visualizes data collected from sensors, monitors, equipment, labor, servers, applications, and network devices within a single dashboard so you can quickly and easily understand what the data is telling you.
This dynamic software gives you the power of big data management tools so you can proactively monitor your entire operation. After setting your own unique parameters for various inputs, Sightline EDM will send alerts in real-time when it detects an anomaly or an outlier in the data that may indicate something is wrong throughout the manufacturing process. With this information, your team can move quickly to assess the situation and react swiftly to correct anything that has deviated from the preferred process. In this use case, a packaging manufacturer leveraged Sightline EDM to reduce waste and maximize efficiency, using both real-time updates on their system along with predictive analytics.
Root Cause Analysis
When an anomaly is detected, Sightline EDM’s manufacturing analytics tools immediately go to work to identify where the anomaly occurred. With an automated root cause analysis process, Sightline EDM’s advanced correlation engine analyzes events across all facilities, operations, equipment, servers, applications, and databases It identifies root causes nearly as quickly as an anomaly is detected. This manufacturing analytics solution lets teams take swift action to limit impact and provide more value over time, as past issues and solutions are logged into the system. With machine learning predictive analytics tools, Sightline EDM will increasingly get better at detecting similar upcoming issues and will be able to offer documentation of service issues, including research notes and recommended solutions to events that happened in the past.
This use case clearly shows how Sightline EDM’s advanced manufacturing analytics platform conducts root cause and creates tangible benefits for manufacturing organizations.
Capacity Planning Predictive Analytics
Capacity planning is vital to a manufacturing business, as it’s how resources will be allocated to meet upcoming demand. To do this effectively, an organization must know what their maximum capacity is, when they will reach it, what demand they are expecting, and how everything will intersect. Leveraging capacity planning predictive analytics correctly means better efficiency, lower operations costs, availability of the right amount of product, and effective resource management.
Sightline EDM’s capacity planning report makes this simple by:
- Streamlining data collection and conducting analysis in real time
- Establishing operations and production baselines
- Comparing expected capacity for expected jobs
- Automating capacity planning predictive analytics to forecast when and where capacity will run out
- Clearly showing where to allocate resources to maintain or expand production
By deploying production forecasting reports or alerts that include capacity threshold limits across systems & facilities, Sightline EDM shows where bottlenecks are likely to occur and when productions are likely to be out of capacity. Ultimately, Sightline’s capacity planning reports help companies accurately predict whether their operations and available resources are enough to meet future demand, based on historical utilization up to years in advance.
The Best Predictive Analytics Software for Industrial and Manufacturing Data
Gather all of your industrial and manufacturing data into one, easy-to-use industry 4.0 platform. Save time and money with Sightline EDM. Book a conversation with an EDM expert and learn more about how Sightline can help your manufacturing businesses become more efficient today.
FAQs:
Leveraging digital technologies and big data management tools to use data from IoT pipeline monitoring to improve processes and output.
Manufacturing analytics solutions combine real-time time series data with historical data to produce insights on the status of current processes and operations, and highlight any patterns that have occurred over time.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) tools embedded in manufacturing data analysis software solutions.
Sightline EDM.