Rob Stoppek, Vice President Automation Group EMEA, Parker Automation

Since the emergence of steam-powered machines in the 18th century, manufacturing has progressed in leaps and bounds. Mechanical production lines have progressed from simple tasks such as weighing and packaging flour in 1785 to the assembly of highly complex items such as electronics and vehicles in the present day.

But times have changed since the first identical Ford Model T cars rolled off the moving assembly line for the mass market in 1913. A rising demand for personalised manufactured goods has meant that companies now need shop floors agile enough to meet fast-changing production line requirements.

Empowered by social networks and e-commerce, consumers now have a more direct say when it comes to what they want. Customers are transitioning from being passive buyers into active participants in the product development process.

Businesses that fail to adapt to this boom in customisation risk losing revenue and customer loyalty, but to many manufacturers this means a huge shift away from providing high-volume products through mass distribution, bringing with it the associated cost implications to change shop floor equipment. However, advanced technology tailored for industrial automation has made it easier to design and implement flexible automation, allowing manufacturers to handle product changeovers with the minimum amount of downtime.

The evolution of automation
The man-industry value chain, constantly driven by the evolution of needs, has moved from handicraft manufacture to industrial manufacture and more recently to research and technological development based industry. Manufacturing has therefore shifted focus from the requirement for high volumes of undistinguished products at widely affordable prices to customised, continuously changing products.

Fixed automation was initially developed to produce a single type of product at high volumes and at the lowest possible cost. On the manufacturing floors of a few decades ago, fixed automation produced at most a limited assortment of products, and each assortment was manufactured in very large batches. The advantage of this type of setup is that the initial cost of fixed automation is lower than its more flexible counterparts, and efficiency is optimised when machines are running only one program. However, with modularity not part of the original factory design brief, any reconfigurations to the production line can be time-consuming and costly to implement.

Programmable automation, which is the next link in automation’s evolutionary chain, can accommodate limited configuration changes after the initial setup. This would entail new code needing to be written as well as the manual changeover of mechanical tools in order for the production line machinery to perform different operations. The changeover process often requires significant amounts of labour and machine downtime, thereby still costing the company in efficiency and productivity in the long run.

The most modern approach, flexible automation, is one in which the operator can combine a mixture of recipe control and mechanical automation. By utilising this combination, processes can be switched seamlessly at the touch of a button, meaning that manufacturers can produce a wider range of products on a single production line. It also enables machines to adapt to the next generation of product specifications, as fully flexible automation equipment usually uses electromechanical positioning technology for changeovers that are fast and highly repeatable.

Each type of automated manufacturing has its drawbacks and advantages. The setup cost of fixed automation technology is comparatively low compared to programmable or flexible automation, but the cost-effectiveness decreases sharply as soon as variations in production become necessary. Flexible automation on the other hand is the most cost-effective option over the total equipment lifetime despite a higher initial setup cost.

Industry 4.0 and the future of manufacturing
The industrial world has moved from steam power to mass production lines and then on to computer-driven automation. Now factories are beginning to make the transition into the so-called “fourth industrial revolution”, or Industry 4.0 – a term used to describe the implementation of autonomous systems that monitor physical processes on the plant floor and make decentralised decisions. This functionality is enabled through the “Internet of Things” or in this case, the “Industrial Internet of Things” (IIoT).

This expression refers to factory equipment and tools that have the ability to sense their physical surroundings and communicate that data back to the industrial network.

These smart factories, with the endless stream of data generated by software and sensors, can effectively access the data in real time, and make autonomous decisions to adapt processes and improve efficiency. This focus on maximising throughput and minimising downtime for low volume manufacturing is one of the main drivers of the flexible automation trend.

Using scalable stepping stones
How will manufacturers be able to transform their operations from fixed or programmable to flexible automation? This question is vital. Ideally manufacturers will want to look for ways to leverage existing technology that is already available on the shelf to identify a clear path towards maneuvering in this direction.

The trick will be to select automation products and solutions that will be reliable, scalable and configurable to a wide range of applications. The emergence of technologies such as programmable automation controllers and electromechanical actuators already provide the building blocks of flexible automation, the former by combining motion and machine control in a single platform and the latter by seamlessly accommodating different product sizes and process changes.

As flexible automation takes over, robotic arms will cease to be fixed in one position on the factory floor, but will be able to be moved around using linear mechanical stages in either single- or multi-axis configurations. This will increase the usefulness of the collaborative robot, an articulated arm with increased safety controls that will be able to work alongside humans. Improved Human Machine Interfaces (HMI) will also enable easier recipe changes and on-the-fly adjustment.

Parker Hannifin manufactures thousands of components across nine different areas of motion and control technology. Every component is capable of being empowered for Industry 4.0, generating data on dozens of critical parameters of its operations.

All of that data can be uploaded to Parker’s Voice of the Machine open IoT platform for connected products and services, increasing efficiency and helping manufacturers on their ultimate quest to build the smart factories of the future.