ARTICLE: The Evolution of Manufacturing Operations in Industry 4.0

The manufacturing industry has traditionally relied on on-premises Operational Technology (OT) solutions, but Industry 4.0 has led to a shift towards cloud-based solutions to enhance agility and flexibility. By 2025, digital manufacturing is expected to constitute a significant part of the entire IoT market, providing significant benefits to companies that embrace it. However, traditional on-premises MOM solutions face challenges such as quality control inconsistencies, equipment maintenance issues, production bottlenecks, and supply chain disruptions.

To effectively address these issues, a centralised manufacturing data and analytics platform is needed. Key components of cloud-enabled manufacturing operations include a three-tier architecture, operational technology (OT) security, and analytics edge. A well-defined architecture can handle diverse workloads and complexities of modern manufacturing environments, offering scalability and flexibility.

When deciding between on-premises and cloud-based solutions, consider factors such as volume of data, faster turnaround time for insights, and plant-centric decision-making. Cloud-based solutions are better suited for manufacturing operations benchmarking, digital twin of the plant, and sustainability reporting and optimization, while on-premises solutions are better suited for digital work instructions, inline quality inspection, and asset/process predictive maintenance.

Navigating the journey towards cloud-enabled manufacturing operations requires defining the scope, assessing applications, defining ROI, and adopting a methodology. Migrating to the cloud can help reduce unexpected IT and manufacturing downtime, improve supplier management and sales efficiency, increase customer satisfaction, and enhance business agility and innovation. A manufacturing domain technology mindset can be helpful in optimizing manufacturing operations.