EIT Digital has introduced its I4.0 Production Monitoring Solution, a new initiative launched as part of its Oedipus High Impact Initiative, and designed to help manufacturers quickly assess a machine's performance.
This new modular solution, conceived and developed by the Italian design shop Cefriel, is designed to work with older, non-natively connected machinery, and with newer models equipped with internet connections.
"We will be able to retrofit a machine by connecting it with an external IoT board," said Nadia Scandelli, Cefriel's Deputy Head of Digital Platform. "Sensors will collect relevant data, such as temperature or vibration levels, to provide insights on the equipment's condition. The information gathered would be exported to Siemens' MindSphere cloud platform, which is specifically designed to monitor industrial plants."
This retrofitting process could be attractive for factories, since it is relatively inexpensive compared to replacing the equipment.
If the machines already support internet connectivity, the boards are not needed, and clients will be able to focus on data visualization aspects to monitor performance.
"We have already connected our board to MindSphere," Scandelli said. "Now we are creating an ad hoc dashboard allowing managers and factory workers to access this data in a less technical and more easily understandable way."
Cefriel's product are ideal for companies that want to update their machines to remotely monitor the performance of those machines or manufacturers who produce connected machine tools and want provide an analytics service on top of their current offerings. This also may be a useful tool for R&D employees of who could be interested in the data analytics part of the solution.
"We expect having a first minimum viable product ready by the end of the year," Scandelli said.
For more information, contact:
EIT Digital
180 Sansome St.
San Francisco, CA 94104
siliconvalley@eitdigital.eu
www.eitdigital.eu