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SMT-Oct2017

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82 SMT Magazine • October 2017 of systems that the factories are facing, and how to connect all that into one solution that can use the data and start to analyze that data is the challenge. Las Marias: Definitely, adopt- ing a new technology such as this would need a significant amount of investment from the manufacturers. How do you think they should justify that investment? Eriksson: New machines on the factory floor can be very expen- sive, going forward. Valor has come up with Valor IoT manufacturing solu- tion, which enables a connection to machines, collects data, and neutralizes that data to a stan- dard way of communicating to any superior ap- plication. This is an easier way forward towards Industry 4.0. In terms of justification, I think each customer is different. You need to look at where your issues are and what it really saves you to make an improvement in a certain area. Las Marias: In a typical electronics assembly line, you've got different machines from dif- ferent manufacturers. Some of these machines provide data, while others do not. How is your Valor IoT manufacturing solution collecting data from these different machines to provide manufacturers the data that they need? Eriksson: Over the past 20 years, Valor has devel- oped experience in working very closely with a lot of the leading machine vendors. Communi- cation drivers have now been put into the Val- or IoT Manufacturing box. Customers can get all this technology off the shelf. If there are new machines that can produce the file, for exam- ple, we have our team that can develop the inte- gration that is needed to also include machines that we may not have outside of the box. So, as long as a machine can produce data that can be processed, we can help the customer. Las Marias: Will those manufacturers who have equipment that are five or 10 years old, but in perfect working condition, be able to use your box, plug this equipment in, and then see the data that they need coming to them? Eriksson: If the machine has no certain output, what we can do with this box is connect sen- sors and scanners around the machine to gain a certain lev- el of control. For example, we can put a scanner in front of the machine or after the ma- chine, or other ways you would like to collect data. That could be an option for older types of machines that don't have the internal option themselves. Las Marias: What do you think is the best ap- proach towards the adoption of Industry 4.0? Eriksson: It's a step-by-step process. First, you need to start looking at how you will collect data. Because once you can collect data from your factory, you can start to work with it, and that's what you need to take the next step to In- dustry 4.0. We have launched a new Business Intelli- gence and Analytics (BIA) platform, just for that reason. It gives customers full capability to get out-of-the-box reports to get started quickly. But each customer has their unique needs, so the platform can slice and dice the data as they like. Las Marias: With all these processes, the amount of data will be huge; how do you make sure that it is meaningful data that you can act upon? Eriksson: Our new BIA platform is big data-en- abled and multi-site enabled, to perform ad- vanced analytics, not just within a factory, but at other factories, and see how it's performing between those; or maybe even analyzing data from the finance system. Most factories want to know how much they are making. Las Marias: What's the latest development in the Open Manufacturing Language (OML)? THE BEST APPROACH TOWARDS INDUSTRY 4.0 ADOPTION Sven Patrik Eriksson

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