Interview with Mr. John Kinney, Manufacturing and Smart Systems Engineer
Tell us about your overall experience implementing IIoT here at Veelo
Generally speaking, our experience has been a good one. When we built our first pre-pilot production line, our production volume increased significantly compared to the lab scale. With that volume came challenges and constraints, primarily in the area of available resources. We also had what I’ll call “location” challenges. We did not own the building we were in at that time. And so those factors both really played into selecting Industrial IoT for this application.
Due to the impermanence of the location, we needed our controls interface to be decentralized, which allowed us to control all our equipment from a laptop. That was a major benefit of an IIoT system that helped address the location challenges. We were able to operate our machines and produce our material quickly on our pre-pilot line without having to have a large-scale, traditional, engineered PLC and cabinets and panels physically mounted somewhere. It allowed us to (more-or-less) simply hook up these IIoT devices and run our equipment.
What have we learned from others in the industry about implementing IIoT?
Industry 4.0 and IIoT are of course big topics that are still being fully explored and defined in industry. From our standpoint, its implementation allowed us, as a startup company, to be agile and get equipment controls up and running quickly. It also allowed for example, controls to be changed on the fly, wirelessly, from anywhere. So even if a programmer is located halfway around the globe, changes and updates can be made, or a system can be controlled as it they’re physically on site.
So I keep coming back to decentralization, but I also see other benefits. It allows you to track and record metrics much more effectively. Anyone at the company with proper authorization can access those metrics and make immediate engineering or operations decisions.
Overall, it will be really interesting to see where the broader manufacturing industry takes IIoT and what the major benefits and pitfalls will be. I think this is one of those things where time will tell and standards will be created for its implementation and usage.
What are some of the challenges of IIoT?
A challenge we observed was with the devices themselves. The devices we utilized are intended to be used universally for many different applications. This has its benefits but can also be difficult. Since PLCs and traditional relays are setup specifically for a production environment, we ran into issues where some of the devices and code didn't quite work out the way we intended, or the device didn't quite do what we needed it to because it was so agnostic. It wasn't specific enough for the application or simple enough for an average engineer to reprogram without knowledge of the specific programming language or previous experience with the device.
So it's interesting, I've noticed at least for us as a company - as we look to the future of how we're going to do our larger production lines and controls, we're leaning back towards traditional PLCs again just because of the robustness and specificity of being true industrial controls. And we’ll see if we end up adding IIoT devices to those systems to make them internet capable or for a specific purpose.
What are some benefits of IIoT?
The IIoT devices we use to control equipment are very inexpensive. We broke several trying to learn how to use them properly and scale up. But at the price point, it was fairly painless to simply replace them as we learned. That’s a benefit for small businesses like ours, who need to fail fast and on a dime.
Also, programs are all written in more traditional programming languages. I believe all of ours were written in a combination of C++ and JavaScript. That allows you to hire standard programmers and software developers, and not have to find someone with specific industrial controls experience. The programmers we used to write the code were able to do the things that we needed quickly. That gave us a lot of flexibility when we were going through our trial-and-error phase. If something didn’t work, we could fairly easily and quickly make changes to the code. It allowed us to be quick on getting to solutions that worked for us. Or if we had to change a piece of equipment and then control it, we could have the code written quickly, and then make the updates over the air, via the internet, immediately.
Ultimately, we got the controls in place and operational very quickly and inexpensively. The system allows anyone that on our small team to effectively control the equipment from their own laptop. We are still using those controls and devices to this day.
What advice would you give to other small businesses on this journey?
Do your research on the devices, and weigh the pros and cons of outsourcing the coding vs keeping it in house. Without resource constraints, we probably would have kept it in house just for the sake of speed and control. Also, just as we’re doing now, watch other manufacturers to see how they’re implementing IIoT and learn from them. We’re planning to incorporate IIoT into any new production lines where it fits, where fit) and we’re taking cues from other much larger manufacturers that may be a step ahead of us when it comes to utilizing the capabilities and benefiting the business.
Mr. John Kinney