The Industrial Internet of Things Has Arrived

The ​“Inter­net of Things” is show­ing up in more homes every­day, cre­at­ing net­works of con­nec­tiv­i­ty that allow our every­day devices to col­lect and exchange data. It is help­ing to cre­ate ways to inte­grate our phys­i­cal world into com­put­er-based sys­tems, result­ing in improved effi­cien­cy, accu­ra­cy, and even eco­nom­ic ben­e­fit. And now, the IoT is begin­ning to intro­duce its face in the Indus­tri­al Robot busi­ness… intro­duc­ing the IIoT (Indus­tri­al Inter­net of Things).

Fanuc is one of the first to design an indus­tri­al inter­net of things for the indus­tri­al world, hop­ing to cre­ate the fac­to­ry of the future. This machine-to-machine net­work, aimed at automak­ers, is called FIELD (Fanuc Intel­li­gent Edge Link and Dri­ve). FIELD net­work make it pos­si­ble to con­nect almost every piece of equip­ment in a man­u­fac­tur­ing plant.

Fanuc hopes that FIELD will change fac­to­ries across the world by increas­ing prof­itabil­i­ty by advanc­ing effi­cien­cy of the equip­ment through the improve­ment of the reli­a­bil­i­ty, qual­i­ty, flex­i­bil­i­ty, and speed of machine process­es. Field should also help to improve machine learn­ing and its capabilities.

Fac­to­ry own­ers will very eas­i­ly be able to cus­tomize their robots and sys­tems by down­load­ing any nec­es­sary appli­ca­tions. This con­nec­tiv­i­ty will enable the deliv­ery of ana­lyt­ics to help opti­mize man­u­fac­tur­ing pro­duc­tion and ulti­mate­ly reach a new lev­el of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and effi­cien­cy. Fanuc reports that FIELD will con­nect indus­tri­al robots, com­put­er numer­i­cal con­trol machines, and periph­er­al devices and sen­sors. Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and edge-com­put­ing tech­nolo­gies are com­bined to help enable dis­trib­uted learn­ing to help the coor­di­na­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion of data. Human work­ers can then ana­lyze data through a com­put­er and know instant­ly which machines need ser­vic­ing, main­te­nance of replacement.

Cur­rent auto­mo­tive fac­to­ries (Gen­er­al Motors) that have already imple­ment­ed a sys­tem or one sim­i­lar are quick­ly real­iz­ing the decrease in down­time and increased cost savings.

There are big­ger plans yet to come. Fanuc is work­ing with Cis­co, Rock­well Automa­tion, and Pre­ferred Net­works to fur­ther devel­op the FIELD sys­tem Their goal is to cre­ate a full solu­tion that includes net­work and com­put­er infra­struc­ture, appli­ca­tions, while also enabling mid­dle-ware plat­form. IoT solu­tions cur­rent­ly in place are still basic, but man­u­fac­tur­ers plan to imple­ment more com­plex tech­nolo­gies such as autonomous indus­tri­al indus­tri­al robots and aug­ment­ed real­i­ty (AR) tools. It is also impor­tant to note some chal­lenges with the IoT that are still being addressed. These include threats of cyber attacks, unknown ROI, tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ty inte­grat­ed IoT, and reluc­tance as it could present job loss­es. An esti­mat­ed invest­ment of over 70 bil­lion in IoT solu­tions will exceed 70 bil­lion by 2020 to solve these challenges. 

Robots​.com are proud inte­gra­tors of Fanuc sys­tems and are ready to help you inte­grate automa­tion. Con­tact Robots​.com online or give us a call to talk to our experts about how we can help add val­ue to your pro­duc­tion line today; 877−762−6881.