Turning Analogue Processes into Digital Signals

Every organisation or factory is working with traditional machines, or having processes which have been running for years. In most occasions, there is no real need for change. But equally, they don’t provide the necessary insights into the production and the operations.

Digital technologies provided by FactorySense allow to transform those traditional operations into digital signals. Those signals can further be used as data for further analysis, providing valuable insights, supporting assumptions and allowing for better business decisions.

Most importantly is that by equipping machines, and locations in the factory or operations with digital sensors, the production process can be identified. This is a major breakthrough, especially for Small and Medium Sized factories that found it hard earlier to determine the benefit of upgrading just one single machine. FactorySense allows to install various measurement units, that allow the visualisation of the production floor, support the definition and monitoring of Key Performance Indicators and turn the various steps of the production process into transparent steps, that can be monitored, traced and shared with partners and customers.

In addition, traditional equipment – legacy equipment – machines that have been with the company for decades, which are providing daily benefit, but too expensive to replace immediately in terms of investment – can also be digitalised. Of course, they won’t provide the granular insight which newly developed machinery, with integrated sensors and IoT components have. But by adding vibration sensors, electricity monitoring, on/off monitoring, changes in temperatures, … in the way changes are taking place in the legacy equipment through its operations, can be digitalised. Combining this information with existing information about the production, administrative data coming from ERP, or from MES provides more valuable insights in the equipment.

Digitalisation supports the factory personnel in giving a better insight in their works, and supporting interaction on how to optimise the way they work, how they can reduce some of the labor-intensive, repetitive and time consuming tasks by changing some of the processes. The data can support them in their thinking on how to improve in terms of efficiency gains, and reduction of cost, making their daily operations more productive and less intense.