Dell Technologies Edge and IoT Solutions Division opens up intelligent worlds to manufacturers

As mid-sized businesses and large enterprises adopt new and exciting technology solutions to accelerate their journey to digital transformation, the goal is to boost productivity and profits while delivering on expectations for people — both inside and outside an organization. The technologies that continue to move the needle significantly, especially for manufacturers, are Edge computing and the Internet of Things (IoT).

According to a recent Forrester survey, 56 percent of global enterprises that responded said they have already adopted Edge and IoT solutions or are expanding their deployments. Another 17 percent of enterprises said they are currently piloting such programs. Both figures indicate a significant interest in Edge computing and IoT as businesses discover the value that these emerging technologies offer.

The edge exists wherever the digital and physical worlds intersect and data is securely collected, generated and processed to create new value.  IoT transforms material things into streams of data, allowing people to sense and interact with them in entirely new ways to accelerate the pace of innovation. The technology comprises sensors that generate data, a digital collation platform that creates insights in real-time, and these form the basis for immediate or carefully-scheduled action.

In the manufacturing environment, sensors are often embedded into the equipment inside facilities (or added as after-market devices), that provide data for an enterprise-grade ecosystem that helps open up a new, digital, intelligent world to managers and decision-makers.

Dell Technologies Edge and IoT Division, which works closely with some of the leading manufacturers in the world, is not only able to help secure the millions of ‘things’ in those deployments to provide business leaders with some peace of mind, but can also help to generate the insights from Edge and IoT deployments that deliver data-driven results for adopters.

A recent Forbes article addressing use cases for manufacturers reported:

“Manufacturers […] rely on heavy machinery to produce products and therefore have a deep interest in understanding the performance of these machines. [They] have a range of opportunities—through computer vision to manage and track the movement of goods, linked to artificial intelligence-enhanced systems that can predict, and even remediate, events before they happen.

[…] of executives in manufacturing firms, 51%, ‘strongly agree‘ that Edge and IoT are opening up new lines of business for their organizations. In addition, 29% of manufacturing executives report their IoT efforts have enabled them to offer new products or services, along with 29% of those with communications companies.

A majority of manufacturers, 51%, state either that selected business areas are supported by IoT or that they have deployed it extensively across their organizations. A majority, 52%, of manufacturers indicate they have visual analytics capabilities […] [with] phones and computer systems are the main sources of Edge and IoT data for manufacturers (cited respectively by 48% and 47%), and the leading use cases in this sector are preventive maintenance (51%) and increasing productivity (49%).”

In the manufacturing sector, IoT deployments provide an enormous amount of data, and businesses that can tap into that data can step into a whole new world that allows them to look back into the past, observe the present, as well as glimpse into the future — or at least, get a 360-degree view of what the future can bring!

A globally-recognized company, Boeing is using Edge and IoT to optimize manufacturing by gathering large amounts of data from operational aircraft. A twin-engine Boeing 737 for example, creates 333 gigabits of information per minute. All that data can be used by Boeing to build simulations and models – fueling use-cases such as predictive maintenance, software improvements, and new product development.

One of Dell Technologies Edge and IoT’s clients, Brembo, an Italian manufacturer, a world-leader and innovator in the field of high-performance disc brake technology, embarked on the development of an advanced smart manufacturing plant. By installing Dell Technologies IoT Gateways to gather data from sensors that provide real-time production-line performance, company leaders can drive their business forward with data-driven decision-making.

Brembo CIO Paolo Crovetti said:

“IoT development in Brembo is focused on getting information and data from PLC machine. We have to understand the value of the information we collect.

“To manage the quality process or maintain process or assembly process, it’s important to understand the tooling consumption and stop the machine when the tooling is not consummate. To do this, we have to analyze the big data coming from the machining.

“The IoT infrastructure is very important because we are able to get, in real time, the efficiency of each line around the world. We are also able to make predictive maintenance on the machine in the future. What we are starting to see is a new relation between human and IT solution.”

At the company’s Curno passenger brake caliper plant, the technology helps connect all equipment to the company network and collects real-time information to control production and perform historical analysis on data.

Dell Technologies Edge and IoT Solutions Division has provided engineers with dashboards on handheld devices to get a highly accurate snapshot on the factory’s performance, in real-time, at a glance.

The value that Dell Technologies Edge and IoT brings to the company lies in its ability to seamlessly consolidate the new technologies that Brembo adds to its infrastructure, massively reducing the time for the integration of solutions based on new, and perhaps unfamiliar technologies.

Overall, IoT in manufacturing can help boost productivity, improve yields, reduce defects and waste, and optimize the supply chain.

Edge and IoT have limitless potential. In fact, with the arrival of the high bandwidth and low-latencies offered by the new generation wireless comms of 5G, Edge and IoT can be deployed in remote areas, in facilities with extensive real-time data needs, and in high-density infrastructures. The reality is that the possibilities in manufacturing (and right across industry) are endless and have yet to be fully established — or imagined. Learn more about Dell Technologies Edge and IoT Solutions to understand how you can use industrial Edge and IoT effectively, and get in touch with Dell Technologies Edge and IoT Solutions Division today.