For many organisations wanting to work towards an Industry 4.0 or a 'Smart Factory' the benefits are clear; however, the path to get to a connected and smart production facility can often be expensive, time-consuming and less than straightforward.
Production facilities today commonly contain a number of machines that have varying ages of service, which have been supplied by different manufacturers, have different communication languages and different levels of ability to process data. By using a digital retrofit methodology, organisations can overcome these problems and create an integrated smart factory without having to invest in new machinery, adapt machine communication languages and go through extensive training programmes to gain real-time, data-based insights.
Harting has produced a useful guide that explains the Digital Retrofit path to industry 4.0 success. Follow the link to request a copy or, alternatively, email [email protected] (please mention MachineBuilding.net).