Overcoming 5 Top Challenges in Manufacturing
As automated production grows more complex, it becomes more difficult for manufacturing professionals to maintain full control of their production environment. Learn how to tackle five of the top manufacturing challenges, reducing the risk of downtime and achieving high quality and safety standards.
Plant management in industrial automation
Operating the entire production of an industrial plant in a fail-safe manner at all times is the basis for maximum productivity and economic success. But there are numerous obstacles to this - even and especially in (partially) automated plants.
1. Surmounting Raw Material Shortages and Supply Bottlenecks
The latest political and economic crises combined with rising production costs have brought about a lack of raw materials, a scarcity of production resources, and supply chain bottlenecks. Smaller production runs with shrinking batch sizes mean machines have to be refitted more often than they used to. These circumstances are accelerating the trend toward more individualized production, all the way down to batches of one.
More Flexible Plant Retrofitting
If you want to minimize downtime and maximize production profitability, your machine changeovers have to be smooth and easy. This takes a plant management system that can save and reload a plant’s status in just a few clicks. AUVESY-MDT octoplant is an optimized solution that allows you to document and refit an entire plant at the push of a button, whatever the manufacturer. This ensures maximum agility and flexibility.
2. Keeping Track of Increasing Complexity
Industrial plants, regardless of industry, have never had so many field devices and sensors, SCADA systems, PLCs, and robots. Countless IoT components also mean an exponentially growing volume of data. The relentless march of automation and digitalization in smart factory systems can be a major data management challenge, especially when devices are combined from different manufacturers and systems. This is due to the heterogeneity of automation and bus systems, as well as the variety of different software applications that have to be mutually compatible.
Full Transparency, Regardless of Device Status
With its easy-to-use data analysis, AUVESY-MDT ensures optimum data consistency across entire automation ecosystems and facilitates straightforward data management. We support the industry’s broadest range of supported devices from all of the industry’s established manufacturers. Use our database to discover just how extensive this compatibility is.
3. Avoid Prolonged Production Downtime
Breakdowns are the most serious threat to productivity, because a system that is not running costs a lot of money from the moment it goes wrong. Production businesses therefore do everything they can to prevent downtime or, if it does happen, to keep it as short as possible. One-click disaster recovery can only be achieved with clear plant management and automated backups.
Can you identify the right system configuration quickly and see which changes were made when, and by whom? If so, maintenance staff can reset production plants or individual machines very quickly and in a targeted manner if something untoward happens.
Confidently Restore a Plant’s Most Recent Operational Status
AUVESY-MDT octoplant allows you to reset a system to its most recent operational status. It also employs difference analysis to detect any firmware updates that have been installed in the background. And it produces documentation that allows errors to be logged and analyzed in retrospect.
4. Detect OT Security Vulnerabilities and Prevent Cyberattacks
Operational technology (OT) is an increasingly popular target for cyberattacks. Attackers home in on industrial plants and disrupt production processes, using ploys such as ransomware.
A device inventory as part of a comprehensive security strategy helps identify vulnerabilities and close security gaps. Targeted threat protection detects risks within the plant and raises an alarm in the event of unwanted interventions and changes from the outside.
Stop Malware
octoplant can prevent damage by independently comparing the status of firmware and driver versions with the manufacturer’s databases. The software also detects patches and updates that have been applied unintentionally and that may contain malicious code.
5. Auditing and Compliance
There are a multitude of documentation duties and compliance requirements to fulfill, which is often not easy. In the event of an audit, comprehensive documentation is required. In some industries, you have to be able to prove when changes have been made and questions of liability have to be addressed. Then there are all the different international certifications to consider.
Process engineering production such as that involving chemicals, pharmaceuticals, or food can also be especially challenging, as can critical infrastructure. Data transparency and tamper-proof records are crucial in both cases. These kind of recordings are also suitable for internal monitoring purposes and for optimizing a plant’s production.
Supporting Audit Trail Processes for Quality Assurance
octoplant enables businesses to meet all of their regulatory and compliance requirements and be ready for the next audit. That’s because AUVESY-MDT’s solution supports audit trail processes for quality assurance and fulfills the obligations of proof required by supervisory authorities and customers.