What is Smart Factory? “Posterity will judge”
The intelligent factory (also name of a prestigious Technology Cluster) is the factory of those who have understood and embraced the concept that the wave ofIndustry 4.0 must be ridden and not suffered: it is the factory where everyone, in their role and in their areas of expertise, learn to use new technologies, which are truly “enabling”, to make the performance of the work entrusted more efficient, more effective, more incisive, less subject to human error.
With IIoT technologies, objects become not only intelligent and communicating with each other (M2M) but also “interacting” with humans (M2H). Through the data it sends, the machine tells its life (Lifecycle Knowledge) while the new IIoT systems collect the data in an organized, structured way, and then return them to the various company interlocutors transformed into information, which is also very valuable as it is based on real time data.
Man is thus called to make his most peculiar decisions, those that – facts in hand – indicate the way to go to obtain the best results with minimum effort; for example, whether to switch from scheduled maintenance to one on condition, whether to switch to predictive diagnostics, or whether and how to redesign the machine itself.
In full generality, reality today can be simulated on the basis of the data collected. This can, for example, allow you to carry out all the necessary checks in the design phase and achieve the goal of creating a product that is almost ready to market; or, more simply, allow guided assistance without the physical presence of the technician.
Certainly new business models are born, where innovation becomes the strategic asset for the growth of the company and the maintenance of market leadership in its sector.
Holonix, a spin-off company of the Politecnico di Milano, has been dealing with exactly these issues for 10 years both from an industrial point of view (with products and services for manufacturing companies) and in the field of research and development through its active participation in projects European Horizon2020 which concern broader innovation.
At the moment, for example, Holonix is engaged with the Coala Project (G.A. 957296) to develop a solution for cognitive assistance that consists of a composition of reliable AI components that even has a digital voice assistantfor interface!
Specifically, the project aims to increase the quality in the manufacturing process, reduce the on-the-job training times of new operators hired in the factory, improve everyone’s skills in managing the opportunities of AI, the challenges and risks in production sites (improvement of Human-AI collaboration).
For the market Holonix has created shared services and business paths of “experiential counseling” to guide companies in a concrete, sustainable way and with rapid implementation times in the fruition and use to one’s own advantage and above all to one’s own measure of what is currently available in terms of enabling technologies.
It also designed and produced an Augmented Intelligence software tool dedicated to the monitoring, control, detection and management of data and parameters of industrial machines.