.svg){kind=small}
In this world of digitalization, industries are continuously adopting the advanced technologies to ensure that they withstand the growing competition amongst the industries. Adopting these new technologies have proved to be an advantage as it has increased the rate of production, decreased the downtime of the machines, which has ultimately led to the profits and expansion of the industries. Now, we must understand the process and the technologies that are trending to enhance the growth of the industries. You must be aware of the technologies such as Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), that helps in the complete digitalization and automation of the plant by integrating the data from various sources such ERP, SCADA, PLC’s, etc. and then analysing it to enhance the production.
As automation and digitalization has taken over the industries, data can be stored in the data base or on cloud and accessed anytime by using the E-logbook system. This can’t be done if the data is maintained using the manual logbooks. Also managing data with the manual logbook turns out to be ineffective as well as time consuming. Additionally creating reports, or data analysis may become a tedious job with higher possibilities of error. But adopting E-logbooks, where you can either enter the data manually or by directly integrating it with the equipment has created a great impact on the overall efficiency of the plant. The data in the E-logbooks can be accessed anytime and can be analysed at multiple platforms to create reports, dashboards, trends, etc. that helps in identifying the equipment condition, provide predictions about the equipment functioning and give alerts if any anomalies are detected. So, application of E-logbook can extensively affect the plant performance in a better way.
Furthermore, integrating the data from the machineries to directly available IoT platforms has reduced the manual paperwork and possible wrong data capture. Earlier the data was captured through manual logbooks and daily, weekly, or monthly reports were created to examine the performance of the machineries and the output. This included higher chances of wrong data capture and error in reports created. As E-logbooks can also be maintained by directly capturing the data without the manual entry, multiple protocols are available in the market that helps in integrating the machinery data with IIoT without any manual work, where the data is captured and analysed to give various reports, trends, etc. Proper management of the mobile data at the shop floor results in the instant visibility of the status of the industry that helps in machine utilization and Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE).
The elimination of manual logbook and adoption of E-logbooks has resulted into various benefits and advantages to the industries that includes
· Increased productivity through visible production data.
· Improved equipment efficiency.
· Decreased downtime of the equipment.
· Accurate data analytics to find out trends.
· Real time monitoring of the equipment.
· Easy access to the core problem in the entire plant.
· Instant alarms and notifications to the person responsible if anomaly occurs.
· Errors can be easily rectified with the help of graphs, dashboards and trends created by analysing the data captured.
· Decreased paperwork and manual work.
As we have gone through the benefits of mobile data capture on the shop floor, it will be of great interest to you to know that Rubus IoT consist of the E-logbook module that improves the data reliability with minimum human errors.
To practically understand about the influence of mobile data capture on shop floor, let’s go through a use case study about the Kokusai Pulp & Paper Co. Ltd which has a Biomass power plant. The aim of the project was to improve the plant performance and process optimization. To achieve the goal, the first step is data acquisition or capturing the shopfloor data. The plant consisted of the DCS system, the data from the DCS system was integrated into the Rubus Platform using the OPC protocol. The E-logbook module in the Rubus Platform is used to maintain data from various equipment such as Boiler, Turbine, Conveyor, Generator. This data is then used to create dashboards, trends, graphs, reports by data analysis, and provide prediction about the equipment health and create alarms when required thereby resulting into increased plant efficiency.
With its proven implementation, all you can conclude is implementing E-logbooks for data capture on shopfloor is a game changer. It has streamlined operations, reduced errors and boosted productivity. Its high time we say goodbye to the tedious manual books and implement E-logbooks to experience the efficient data driven manufacturing.
