Smart Industry 4.0

From supply chain systems to warehouse management, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed just how quickly and easily global disruptions can affect aspects of manufacturing. Especially now, as operations in a variety of industries grow more complex, paper-based processes are becoming increasingly challenging to maintain, making them vulnerable to these and other challenges. For these reasons, the role the Connected Worker has become more critical.

One way to make digital technologies as accessible as possible, especially as industries recover from the pandemic, is to get the operators involved. By transforming them into “connected workers,” you can improve your operational resiliency, increase your overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and future-proof your factory

Totally immersed in their environments via connected technologies, connected workers — also called augmented workers — are operators that have various digital technologies, applications and tools at their fingertips, keeping them connected to their equipment and to each other. These technologies are critical to providing operators with all the information, services, and experiences they need to do their jobs quickly and efficiently. In addition, these tools can:

• Allow workers to perform tasks regardless of where a supervisor is physically located.
• Improve worker communication within and across shifts and facility locations.
• Provide easy access to equipment knowledge to complete tasks.
• Offer workers real-time information to guide their actions.

For example, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, operators would clock in for their shifts and chat with other operators about various plant activities to hand over one shift to the next. Then, with greater importance placed on social distancing during the pandemic, many manufacturers wanted to avoid unnecessary contact between workers. The right digital tools can minimize the amount of physical contact between personnel on the shop floor, empower operators to work more autonomously, and enable supervisors to remotely manage maintenance tasks and other assigned jobs.

Why It All Starts With The Connected Worker

The operator is at the heart of the shop floor.

These workers know precisely what’s happening when it comes to their equipment, and they know — better than anyone — what kind of data, information and processes can lead to improvements in speed, efficiency or productivity. But whether a plant is utilizing paper-based systems or an operation is reeling from the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, operators’ knowledge about their equipment remains mostly in their heads. It is rarely tapped into or shared, even across shifts, making it difficult to maintain production processes if an operator is out sick or retires — the latter of which is contributing to an ever-widening skills gap (discussed more below).

Connected technologies overcome these challenges

Connected technologies overcome these challenges by empowering operators to make data-driven decisions, improve system-level processes, and easily share their knowledge with each other. For example, with the help of a connected worker platform, connected workers have instant access to an extensive, interactive knowledge base that consists of the latest standard operating procedures (SOPs), safety guidelines, root cause analysis (RCA) results and other knowledge items like videos — all from a smart device and always up-to-date.

As workers register more issues, deviations and solutions, this knowledge base grows, decreasing operators’ reliance on maintenance, engineers and other key personnel. In addition, because all essential information is now accessible, operators can easily transfer their knowledge from shift to shift and from plant to plant.

How Connected Workers Increase OEE

As a manufacturing strategy, investing in the connected worker brings many benefits. Because these operators have all the information they need to do their jobs within the knowledge base, they can make better, more informed decisions at any given moment. And, with the help of connected technologies, they tend to make less errors and work more efficiently. Another major advantage of these connected workers is the increase in overall equipment effectiveness (OEE).

OEE - Combining three factors

An invaluable production metric, OEE represents how well a manufacturing process is utilized compared to its maximum potential, and combines three factors: availability, performance and quality:

Availability

Empowering connected workers to perform their jobs independently can reduce equipment breakdown time. With the help of a connected worker platform and mobile-enabled knowledge management system, workers can access helpful knowledge items on the shop floor and resolve breakdowns faster. These same systems will also automatically suggest solutions and step-by-step checklists that can save the connected worker valuable time. In addition, the ability to chat with other colleagues in the same facility or across different plants enables workers to solve issues faster.

Performance

Small stops and slow cycle times are too short to register and can be difficult to track using paper-based OEE reporting systems. Using the information provided by connected sensors, connected worker platforms can detect deviations from a created centerline. From there, supervisors can send notifications to connected workers to carry out a task, e.g. defect handling or maintenance.

Quality

Getting production right the first time reduces the number of part rejects. In the heat of a production shift, however, workers can easily skip a small step, eroding the final product quality and costing the plant both time and raw materials. Digital task management tools let supervisors easily schedule and assign planned checkups or cleaning, inspection and lubrication (CIL) tasks to connected workers. When a task is due, all relevant personnel are automatically notified. These platforms also support connected workers in executing their tasks via digital forms, which provide the operators with step-by-step instructions accompanied by images or videos.