如何使用物联网改进quality control level of the manufacturing industry

Quality control is the foundation of every industry and is particularly important in manufacturing. The changing market demand, high material and production costs, and the mission-critical nature of the final product have prompted equipment manufacturers to pursue first-class quality and the lowest scrap rate. With the gradual development of the Internet of Things (IoT) in manufacturing, quality management is considered an area full of opportunities.

Effective quality management depends on the ability to continuously monitor and control a series of machine and process parameters that affect product quality. To ensure consistent product performance and compliance with standards, equipment is constantly recalibrated as process adjustments and other changes in the production line. However, with the increasing complexity of processing systems and manufacturing processes, coupled with the limitations of wired networks, many process variables have been overlooked.

Although wired communication is ideal for high-throughput, time-sensitive automation tasks, it lacks the flexibility and economy required to capture telemetry data on a large scale. Usually, although factors such as environmental conditions can seriously affect quality variability, they are usually not studied and controlled. For example, in automobile manufacturing, lower room temperatures can cause 3D printed components to cool too quickly, reducing their quality.

More importantly, most wired industrial systems designed at the end of the last century do not support data exchange outside the workshop. This creates data silos that cannot be used to increase production efficiency and throughput. Instead, process optimization and quality management often rely on passive, manual post-production inspections. In addition to expensive manual intervention, this brings significant quality variability and associated costs, while also making it difficult to track the root cause of quality problems.

Industry 4.0: active quality management

The urgent need to improve process visibility illustrates the great potential of the Internet of Things and its Industry 4.0 in active quality management. Wireless devices are not necessarily new to the manufacturing industry, but most traditional solutions cannot meet the critical requirements of industrial operations, such as range, power consumption, and ease of integration. The new generation of IoT connections not only provide industry-level reliability and security for communications, but also provide the high scalability, cost-effectiveness, and interoperability required to overcome manufacturing inertia.

The wireless IoT network can capture a large amount of refined key data on the production line, allowing manufacturers to exercise unprecedented control over their operations and product output. In addition to reactive quality checks, IoT data also supports proactive quality assurance methods to diagnose and prevent defects earlier in the production process, thereby achieving higher production throughput while reducing costs and waste.

Through 24/7 remote monitoring, quality management personnel can immediately find out-of-spec conditions in running equipment and processes, which can lead to potential product defects. A quick quality check helps confirm the problem at the source and helps to troubleshoot to prevent future defects.

Once different sources of quality problems are diagnosed and verified, manufacturers can even develop and implement quality control models to further optimize product performance. Using constant sensor input, this model allows the machine to automatically adapt to unnecessary fluctuations in environmental conditions and other variables, thereby obtaining the highest and consistent product attributes.

When it comes to pharmaceutical, food and beverage industries, quality management is not limited to production lines. The temperature, humidity, vibration and other factors during storage will affect the shelf life of the product. The IoT sensor network can therefore help monitor and achieve ideal storage conditions.

A wireless connection that will stand the test of the future

In most industrial environments, because data collection is an inherent challenge, IoT deployments often appear extremely complex, expensive, and intimidating. The truth is that it all comes down to choosing the right technology for the right business case. For decades, speed and ultra-low latency have been the top priorities of industrial communications. (Source IoT Home) However, with the rise of a new round of IoT telemetry applications, these applications have become irrelevant in many use-case scenarios outside of automation. On the contrary, what is really important is the long-term reliability, integrability, and manageability of the communication network, because it can be expanded to accommodate thousands of connected endpoints.

Designed to meet such critical requirements of future industrial networks. A powerful, cost-effective and transformable solution is introduced to help manufacturers quickly transform traditional assets and equipment into dynamic interconnected systems. It also allows you to take advantage of new large amounts of data, such as environmental parameters, which were previously unresolved due to the high cost and complexity of traditional communication solutions.

Ultimately, the transition to the next industrial revolution will never require costly and daunting elimination and replacement of existing equipment. On the contrary, multi-purpose IoT technology should enable you to leverage the value of Industry 4.0 directly from traditional systems in a simple and clear way.