Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1022231
22 SMT007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2018 came into the plant. You can then do a trail through a secure mechanism, and you can see the history of where that happened. You will then have the evidence that you need, beyond reasonable doubt, to be able to highlight who is responsible. "Now, as soon as this becomes normal, the counterfeiters are going to realize that their business model has gone south. Basi- cally, they can still put materials in there, but when they do, they're going to get caught, and that means that they are going to move on to somewhere else and trying to find some- thing else to give them a thrill. Because if they continue to do what they're doing, they're going to be caught and prosecuted. That means that we clean up the supply chain. If we can create traceability data without doubt in manufacturing and have a secure kind of distribution path for materials as they go from manufacturer to the factory, that combination will eradicate counterfeiting, and that is a big deal for the industry," says Ford. Impact on Labor IoT—and Industry 4.0, for that matter—are expected to bring efficiencies in manufactur- ing. And one part of that is labor. "We have to remember that people are part of our digital factory as well, and like the machines, we can control them with data. Are we supposed to control people in the same way? And actually, I would say yes. Now, we hear a little bit about augmented reality (AR), which, whatever the technology may be, it's bringing information to the operator in real time as they do their job. So, the kind of AR can probably fence what the operator is doing. It can track what they're doing, so I would see that in the factory of the future, where we've got some kind of—we'll call it AI, for the sake of argument—that's taking the demand from the customer and working out the best ways to utilize the machines," explains Ford. "That logic is also going to be finding out the best way to utilize the workforce. And that is quite good, because in traditional manufacturing, you go in and see the manufacturing lines and people do the same job day in, day out. It's awful. The first company I worked at, there was a test that operators had to take, and if they failed the test they could not work on the produc- tion line. It's a kind of a job that certain people can do, but other people would go abso- lutely crazy. And it's got a bad rap in the market. Nobody wants to be doing something as repetitive as that. "With this AR scenario, however, we are able to provide information for people to do a job which is a lot more interesting than if they had to learn everything about the job them- selves. For example, an operator in the future will be walking into a factory, and they will maybe be told, 'Well, right now we're making this product, so I am going to give you the step-by-step instructions in your glasses and show you exactly how to do that.' So, you're up to speed immediately. You don't need train- ing. You don't need a learning curve. Every- thing is provided, and you just do that. It could be an hour later, and they'll say, 'We've got a quality issue. We need you to go over and start to do a quality check exercise.' Maybe 40 minutes after that, 'We need some materials to be taken from the warehouse to this special point of use; please go over there and collect them.' Maybe there's maintenance to be done on a machine, where something needs to be adjusted or lubricated or something like that." In this scenario, operators are now no longer tied to a particular job, and that they don't need exceptional experience or skills in order to be able to do a job with adequate performance and quality. According to Ford, the ability to take information and present it to people and guide them step by step gives them a reward-