Product Quality is crucial to any company that is in charge of designing, producing, or transporting any physical good. This is especially important for the manufacturing sector.
As many software developers explain, manufacturers aim for consistency and high-quality results with minimal rejection rates from their customers.
This process neutralizes the changeable market demand and maintains the material costs that are the norm in the manufacturing company.
In this way, it is not a surprise that many manufacturing industries are more focused on improving their product quality by integrating new technologies to give them a competitive advantage in the market.
As a result, the ability to control and monitor every stage in the production process is paramount to the quality of the manufacturing good in today’s tech-centric world.
Technicians and workers are constantly recalibrating the equipment on the factory floor. Their goal is to optimize the production lines, ensure a consistent process, and reduce any inefficiency that only wastes time.
Meanwhile, the same retooling is taking place in other stages of production. The key to this process is automated systems and robotics.
Manufacturing plants have always employed the workforces of many trained product quality assurance specialists. In other words, they need to be sure of the integrity of the process and the final product.
However, with the rise of Industry 4.0 and IoT technologies, these manufacturing industries are integrating new processes, systems, and devices to monitor and detect any flaw in the tasks.
How IoT is impacting Product Quality
For manufacturing industries, IoT technologies represent the next step in product quality, thanks to:
- Real-time monitoring
- Process automation
- Data analytics
By providing production lines with smart devices such as sensors, plant managers can monitor the environment condition and equipment performance in real-time 24/7. Also, this added insight enables the company to:
- Understand the issues
- Take action with renewed smart decisions
- Improve quality control
- Increase product quality
With these specific applications, the Internet of things (IoT) is helping manufacturing industries with:
Perform predictive maintenance
Industry 4.0 is about to estimate when any component of the machinery might break down in order to fix it. Those days where people wait for a piece of machinery to fail are over.
In any company, run to fail o repair can easily cost 10 times more than a good maintenance program such as an IoT solution that not only will assure the product quality but reduce the productivity loss from unplanned downtimes.
Uncalibrated machinery on the plant floor introduces several flaws and irregularities into the finished products. IoT applications remain proactive about maintenance and repair.
Monitor production remotely and Quality assurance
Some other benefits from Industry 4.0 and IoT are the monitored and controlled systems without employees’ presence. Therefore, this is a real benefit in the current climate where the pandemic era has closed companies and their physical operations.
Using these systems, workers and manufacturers can continue to perform their work and keep the product quality without manual intervention.
As an example, bakeries around the world are integrating high-speed visual devices to measure their workflows. Analyze and identify any defective baked goods before sending them out is the principal task.
Automate production processes and product quality
Once a manufacturing industry has IoT devices, the managers can start to integrate new robotic processes automation. Also, they can add many other technologies to make the operations more reliable.
The more data they gather from the smart sensors, the more machine-learning algorithm, and AI-powered platforms can be fed.
These operations help the industry with real-time data for better insights and smart decisions. Machine-to-machine communications automated systems detect any variation into the factory floor, so, it is possible to send them to a cloud of machines where specialists will analyze it and study how to proceed.
As a result, while product quality and quality control are the major priorities for manufacturing industries, IoT can also provide other benefits in terms of process development and innovation, such as:
- Environmental data
- Performance Analytics
- Locate inefficiencies and oversights
- Improve subpar processes
- Create more efficient material handling strategies
- Ensure consistent outputs
In conclusion, Industry 4.0 and IoT offer Industrial-connectivity tools that will change the course within the market and the company. Learn more here!
