We’re in the midst of an industrial revolution. Industry 4.0 is an umbrella term that covers a multitude of technological advances that are transforming the world’s manufacturing and production industries.
Simply put, the Holy Grail of maximum efficiency could be realised with Coding Automation. Adem Kulauzovic, Director of Coding Automation, at Domino Printing Sciences plc, highlights the five ways in which you can achieve this through coding and marking.
Defeating downtime through proactive monitoring
Manufacturers want peace of mind that their printers will remain operational at all times, and utilising Industry 4.0 concepts, such as Integration and Cloud Computing, makes this feasible. By using an array of integrated sensors to automate system monitoring and send data to the Cloud, engineers can use this information to monitor their printers and detect any reliability issues.
Empowering customers through Automation and Internet of Things
It’s not just support teams and engineers that can monitor printers; customers also have valuable insights into their printer operations at their fingertips.
With the use of a connected online system, a customer can check the status of their printers from any location, remotely diagnose faults, plan for refills and reorders by watching ink levels and usage. They can set alerts if, for example, ink levels reach a dangerously low level – and can take action before downtime occurs – all without physically needing to be at the printer’s location. By monitoring cleaning and equipment maintenance schedules, the longevity of the printers and their components is increased.
Eliminating recalls caused by operator error
Consider that the average human makes one mistake for every 300 characters entered. Incorrect information entered on printers by operators results in costly recalls and reworks. It’s a significant cause of unplanned production downtime. Integrating printers with factory automation systems, such as MES (Manufacturing Execution System) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems enables labelling data to be coordinated automatically without the need for human input.
Seamless interoperability through standardisation
Communication standards provide a universal method to collect and share production information across production areas; measuring and adjusting production throughput while reducing the risk of data inconsistency across different pieces of production equipment.
Protecting consumers through serialisation
There are several solutions for unique identification, aggregation, tracing, and verification of products to meet the challenges of serialisation. These serialisation products can generate encrypted, unique numbers, and enable multiple levels of aggregation and integration with government databases, enterprise systems, and contract manufacturing organisations.
Industry 4.0 is not just a revolution but an evolution of technology, attitudes, and techniques across every section of the world’s manufacturing and production environments. The benefits of the fourth Industrial Revolution are clear to see. From increased performance and profitability, to customer empowerment, to servitisation and serialisation, each advantage is working towards the ultimate goal for any production environment: maximum efficiency.
