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THE EARLY BIRD GETS THE WORM: Advantech’s Edge Gateway Platforms Show How “Industry 4.0” is More Than Just a Catchphrase for an Industrial Laundry Business
Technology Category
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
- Networks & Connectivity - WiFi
- Processors & Edge Intelligence - Embedded & Edge Computers
Applicable Functions
- Discrete Manufacturing
- Quality Assurance
Use Cases
- Factory Operations Visibility & Intelligence
- Predictive Maintenance
- Real-Time Location System (RTLS)
Services
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
The industrial laundry firm, a key player in the textile and service industry, was struggling to transition to Industry 4.0. The firm was traditional and relied heavily on manual labor and old equipment, which lacked open communication interfaces for automation. The management needed to monitor the efficiency of both machines and workers in their large facilities and make use of visualization and data analytics to deploy efficiency initiatives. However, traditional PLC/HMI solutions were too expensive and not easily integrated into cloud-based solutions. Therefore, they needed a dedicated cloud-based application that would allow management to easily view their production efficiency across multiple locations throughout the country.
About The Customer
The customer is a large-scale industrial laundry firm based in the USA. The firm is a key player in the textile industry and service industry. The firm was traditionally labor-intensive but had the foresight to embrace innovation wherever possible. It has actively transformed itself from a labor-intensive manufacturer into a knowledge-intensive company, converting several traditional factories into smart factories. The firm's management needed to monitor the efficiency of both machines and workers in their large facilities and make use of visualization and data analytics to help them deploy efficiency initiatives.
The Solution
Advantech provided the industrial laundry firm with its edge gateway platforms to help transform their traditional factories into Industry 4.0-enabled smart factories. The Advantech WISE-4051, an 8-ch digital input IoT wireless I/O module with RS-485 port, was used as a wireless counter to monitor the number of laundry items handled by each worker. The palm-size automation computer UNO-2272G functioned as a data gateway for local data aggregation before pushing the data to the AWS cloud-based app. An EKI-6332GN IEEE 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi app/client was used for the onsite wireless infrastructure and the collection of data from end devices throughout their plants, including very old equipment retrofitted with sensors.
Operational Impact
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