Cloud, self-driving cars, 3D-printing, artificial intelligence (AI) and what not …. businesses around the world are fast embracing novel and cutting-edge technologies to stay ahead of the curve. Of all the industry verticals, manufacturing industry is one segment that has been witnessing a sea change when it comes to adopting emerging tech trends.
We all know that IoT (Internet of Things) is currently one of the most enthralling tech trends taking businesses by a storm and manufacturing industry is no exception. In fact, IoT is already helping a good number of manufacturing businesses reshape and optimize their operations.
Also referred to as IIoT or the Industrial Internet of Things in the manufacturing landscape, is providing manufacturing businesses with the ability to control and tame machines, factories and infrastructure. Whereas connected and smart products on the other hand have revolutionized the ways manufacturing companies carry out their daily operations.
As digitization takes the manufacturing sector by a storm, IoT presents a great potential for manufacturing enterprises to boost productivity and become agile. Here’s why manufacturing businesses ought to get their heads into IoT:
1. Instant access to information
Several manufacturing experts might refute the fact that IoT is a novel concept, because machines back then had sensors too. A fine example here is the laser jet-printing machine that notifies the user when it’s time to refill the cartridges. However, today there are tech tools to help integrate data from a range of different platforms and operations such as service, delivery, engineering, etc. to provide actionable information for improved accuracy and efficiency.
Imagine an advanced printer that prints all your pre-scheduled stuff quite efficiently at the start of the day and the moment you walk in the floor and also emails you a detailed report automatically. Sounds great, isn’t’ it?
This brings into picture the essence of ERP software for manufacturing industry, which helps to merge this data across diverse platforms and operations. Here comes the exciting part about IoT, which is its ability to club the diverse data and analyse the same for deriving predictive insights.
This is the reason manufacturing ERP has turned more relevant than ever, since it is the key to bringing together all the data enabling manufacturing businesses enjoy the true potential of IoT.
Also Read:Â Tips For Successful ERP Implementation For Manufacturing Companies !
2. Bid farewell to maintenance woes
Design and manufacturing experts with the help of IoT can carry out proactive analysis to fetch predictive intelligence. For example, an equipment monitoring temperature, which when exceeds its maximum limit will set off an alarm.
In a traditional manufacturing setting, there’s an operator in place to respond to such an alarm. Contrary to the traditional setting, intelligent and predictive insights would make it much easier to foresee such events.
This certainly is a boon for manufacturing companies specially the ones involved in food processing where an equipment would first gauge the temperature and analyse the same to come up with temperature scenarios and patterns.
3. Remote monitoring
IoT would facilitate manufacturing companies to manage, monitor and diagnose issues for all the connected equipment remotely. Yes, connected manufacturing equipment can be easily diagnosed remotely to check for potential issues.
Remote monitoring can be anything from tracking the performance or usage of a particular equipment to viewing its performance history. This would help technicians to run preliminary diagnostics whilst coming up with corrective measures.
4. Aftersales
For any industrial equipment manufacturing company, aftersales is all about revenue and profit, but the old-school service delivery makes it inefficient. Technicians often have to jump between the manufacturing unit and installation site for diagnosis and repair.
IoT comes as a boon here, since it would seemingly transfer data from smart and connected products via cloud based ERP software paving way for efficient aftersales service. Technicians can now diagnose problems remotely and can arm themselves with all the required parts to repair the equipment at the site thus, saving them time. IoT along with ERP software for manufacturing industries will speed up service delivery to a great extent.
Also Read:Â How Robots Are Making Manufacturing Sustainable
Takeaway
Harnessing the true potential of IoT calls for contextualizing and integrating data into the workflow processes, which triggers the need for having a manufacturing ERP software.
This is very much doable, since next gen manufacturing ERP systems are robust and user-friendly than ever when it comes to connecting people, processes and data, all in an intelligent manner thus, helping manufacturing businesses get the most out of the data at hand.
This is the reason ERP software vendors are coming up with novel features and functionalities to help manufacturing businesses in key processes such as production, inventory, supply chain, etc.
The nexus of manufacturing ERP software and IoT is sure to drive manufacturing industry on new altitudes by making available actionable and real-time data at the click of a button.
(Disclaimer: This is a guest post submitted on Techstory by the mentioned authors. All the contents and images in the article have been provided to Techstory by the authors of the article. Techstory is not responsible or liable for any content in this article.)
About The Author:
Anwar Shaikh writes about enterprise management, business intelligence and analytics software such as  CRM, ERP and payroll solutions. A self-made and reared up writer, Anwar writes for Sage Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd., a leading provider of cost-effective and user-friendly enterprise management solutions to small and mid-sized businesses in India.