Schneider Electric: Industrial Internet of Things to promote the wisdom of wisdom "made path
At present, the trend of smart manufacturing is impacting the appearance and trend of global manufacturing industry. There have been many voices in the industry that talk about this topic. For example, what is the future direction of industrial evolution? Intelligent manufacturing what exactly to achieve the purpose? Why many companies began to compete for the development of industrial Internet of Things?
In response to these questions, Li Kai, head of the smart manufacturing business of Schneider Electric (China) Co., Ltd., pointed out that the rapid development of smart manufacturing and industrial Internet of Things has been closely linked with the current trend of the current industrial field. However, the development The first step in smart manufacturing is to leverage Transparency in Industrial Internet of Things.
Transparency: the first step in intelligent upgrading of manufacturing industry
Li Kai noted that in recent years, as the leader in digital transformation of energy efficiency management and automation in the world, Schneider Electric has become more and more clear that the society and various fields in the industry are facing the future of electrification, digitization, low carbonization and decentralization trend.
In fact, many market phenomena, technological advances and policy directions are confirming the arrival of these trends. The power industry appears to many people to be a traditional industry, but electrification is still a strong growth trend today, and the demand for electricity in the world will reach an unimaginable scale in the coming decades. Digitized The rapid development will allow a growing mass information node in all sectors of society. The trend of low carbonization is evident from the current electrification of urban transportation. The trend of decentralization is reflected in information storage operations, enterprise operations, energy production And other ubiquitous decentralization, such as commercial and industrial cloud applications, wind energy in the field of solar energy, solar power generation and smart micro-grid technologies reflect this trend.
Looking back to China, it is well known that China is a big manufacturing country and one of the most demanding markets for new industrial technologies in the world. In response to future challenges, China has proposed a "Made in China 2025" plan at the policy level, from which it can also see the government's judgment on the digitization and intelligent transformation of manufacturing industry. China from the manufacturing power to the manufacturing power there are still any gaps? Li Kai believes that the main existing in the production efficiency, energy consumption and quality of units, and digital, intelligent to achieve the fundamental goal is to try to use less manpower, less energy, raw materials investment to obtain better output.
For example, in terms of manpower, just as Apple CEO Jim Cook said during his recent visit to China, China is no longer a country that has a significant advantage in terms of manpower costs. The workforce in the future will be given better treatment and work experience and play a more efficient and critical role through more intelligent management. Another key challenge for China's manufacturing industry - the issue of energy consumption - is also becoming more pronounced. For example, in some heavy industries such as cement, the average level of energy consumption per unit of Chinese enterprises is even lower than that of India, which shows the pressing challenges. In particular, as domestic and international energy consumption compliance and market access The threshold is getting higher and higher, which has become a practical problem that must be solved.
To solve these problems, for a real manufacturing enterprises, the real problem is not the determination of entrepreneurs not to upgrade, nor is it hindering the technology, but precisely because many factories in the management dimension is not transparent, just like a "Black box." Li Kai talked about the factory is the core of manufacturing, if the factory data information itself is not transparent, then the intelligence is impossible. The factory's "black box" information lags behind and is not visible, hindering factory management operators in making informed decisions and responding effectively. Therefore, we must first solve the "black box" to achieve transparency.
IoT architecture to promote interoperability, unlimited potential
It is such a challenge that has given birth to the thriving "industrial catalyst" of the Industrial Internet of Things. Difficult information collection, delivery is not smooth, difficult to achieve cloud computing analysis and other problems, are due to the emergence of industrial Internet solved. Li Kai pointed out that cloud computing, mobile Internet, big data, Internet of things, intelligent and other technical directions for the future production and operation of the intelligent management laid a very good technical basis for these technologies and the introduction of the industry after the application Truly solve some hardship in the past industry is difficult to solve. Today, many companies have even proposed their own plans and ideas for the Industrial Internet of Things.
The model proposed by Schneider Electric, is its global launch of the Internet-based EcoStruxureTM architecture and platform. According to Li Kai, EcoStruxure is divided into three levels from the bottom up, the bottom is the interoperable product layer, the middle one is the edge control layer, the top one is the application, analysis and service layer. In order to meet the needs of the future IoT, integrated industrial information security functions are integrated in all three layers. Meanwhile, the architecture supports both cloud deployment and local deployment, and can be flexibly configured and expanded according to user needs.
Li Kai pointed out that the top layer of application, analysis and service layer is the most easily overlooked aspects of many users in the past, and the future of digital transformation opportunities in this layer is precisely the most concentrated, which is why Schneider Electric value through The entire structure of industrial information security and cloud deployment capabilities and so on, so much has invested a lot of resources in advance layout. He said that in terms of value, Schneider Electric helps users achieve greater efficiency, higher production performance through digital transformation, and better return on their investment through agile management, with remote, traceable capabilities To obtain the initiative to resolve risks.
Open up the manufacturing enterprise "human body" function, to achieve transparent "wisdom" made
Today, with the consensus reached by various vendors on the prospect of interconnection and interoperability, the widespread connection of hardware is no longer a problem, and the core issue has turned into a massive amount of data generated by interconnected devices. Through the acquisition and processing of The right time is given to the right people for effective decision making.
In this respect, Li Kai compared the smart manufacturing enterprise to the human body. He pointed out that automation is equivalent to the human limbs and is responsible for performing tasks. The digital system is equivalent to the human nervous system and is responsible for the communication and communication of various types of information and instructions. Lean manufacturing operations technology is the mind of wisdom, but also the most important core and key to intelligent manufacturing.
In this thinking, Schneider Electric advocates relying on the "combination of hard and soft, soft after the first" and "first medicine after the drug" concept, in order to sort out the needs of manufacturing enterprises under the premise of its overall restructuring and upgrading of the overall planning ; And in the implementation, we start with the lean operation consulting, digital platform and service provided for carrier-grade, and introduce various automation products and systems of control level and device level according to the actual demand, and finally create a transparent "wisdom "Made solution.
In this regard, Li Kai like to use a slightly joking argument: "We and the customer almost no 'one-hammer sale' are like 'marriage' continue to deepen understanding, and often the other multiple business units repeatedly Communication, and sometimes help customers recognize the real needs they did not realize at first. Without such in-depth research and discussion on the 'nerve' and 'texture' of the enterprise, it is very hard to get a real, Effective intellectual solutions. "
Of course, the investigation is exhaustive. Without real products, it is also easy to face the embarrassment of making bricks without straw. At the product and solution level, Schneider Electric leverages the IoT-based EcoStruxure architecture and platform to empower users to create complete products and solutions that span internetworking products, edge control and application, analytics and service layers The "Transparent + Converged" factory architecture enables transparent and controllable manufacturing enterprises from the bottom to the top. This is one of the few actual cases where IoT technology is used to solve industrial challenges.
In the end, Schneider Electric's transparent "smart" solutions ultimately led to smart values for both dimensions - end-to-end intelligence and lifecycle intelligence. Li Kai said that end-to-end intelligence has enabled full intelligence from the customer end to the supplier end, including automatic generation of material procurement plans from orders, automatic scheduling, and full control of abnormalities in production throughout the life cycle; and life The realization of a period of intelligence enables enterprises to effectively connect the digital service with the production process and the research and development process, forming a closed loop with continuous improvement.
Visible, in the current era of rapid transformation of manufacturing, "know yourself, know yourself" is still an important means of business empowerment and enhance competitiveness. More and more new technologies such as Industrial Internet of Things are being integrated into the enterprise upgrade kits, and play a role in the direction of transparency, intelligence and digitization. We expect that in the future, more and more Chinese manufacturing enterprises will be able to move into the fast track of transparent "wisdom" and shoulder the national dream of making a powerful nation.
