A Remote Monitoring and Analytics Platform for Manufacturing Engineers

传统的工厂管理和过程控制系统在现场集成，需要工程师直接在工厂进行监控、管理和干预。然而，随着近期COVID-19爆发而实施封城，许多制造商因实施社交距离措施而被迫减少生产量，或无限期停产。这些制造公司可能被指定为“非必要企业”，但它们制造的产品，例如硬盘驱动器、机器零件和医疗部件，往往对促进在家工作、创新和维护社会和谐至关重要。对制造业公司来说，这一情况的财务影响可能导致企业倒闭和裁员。由于制造业公司经常从周边地区招聘各种职位的员工，这可能会导致社区的衰落和恶化，这些社区已经因为封锁所施加的限制而陷入困境。随着先进的数据分析成为整个制造业的关键技术，现在，自动化的大规模过程系统有可能充分利用它们收集的大量数据，此外，用户有可能远程管理支撑制造过程的分析。高级分析实验室（AAL）正在为制造业开发基于云的远程监控和分析平台。该平台将使生产工程师和管理人员能够远程查看工厂状态，与AAL的先进机器学习模型进行交互，并与现场员工进行沟通，以实现生产过程中的变化。这将代表着如何以远程方式管理工厂车间的一个步骤变化，无论是对于这种流行病还是潜在的未来流行病，或者即使远程工作正在寻求成为常态。使用该工具，工程师和流程经理将能够远程查看其生产进度和当前沿着制造流程的单位的状态。此外，使用新型多变量分析提供最终产品质量预测的高级分析模型可用于对数字孪生模型进行建议/理论更改，以确定返工的最佳方式，使单位恢复规范，促进公司的循环经济。应用程序的消息传递/工作空间组件可用于与现场的骨干工厂员工共享特定单元的最佳返工策略，从而进一步促进在高级分析时代向工业4.0的过渡。

Conventional factory management and process control systems are integrated on site, requiring monitoring, management and intervention from engineers directly on the factory floor. However, with the recent lockdown imposed by the COVID-19 outbreak, many manufacturers have been forced to either reduce production throughput due to implementation of social distancing initiatives, or else suspend production indefinitely. Such manufacturing companies may have been designated as a 'nonessential business', however often the products they manufacture, for example, hard-disk-drives, machine parts and medical components, are essential to facilitate working from home, derive innovation and maintain societal harmony. For manufacturing companies, the financial impact of this can lead to business closure and the redundancy of employees. Since manufacturing companies often recruit employees in a range of roles from the surrounding geographical area, this can lead to the decline and deterioration of communities which are already struggling due to the restrictions imposed by the lockdown.With advanced data analytics becoming a key enabling technology across the manufacturing sector, there is now the potential for automated large-scale process systems to make the most of the large volumes of data they collect, and furthermore for users to remotely manage the analytics underpinning the manufacturing process. Advanced Analytics Labs (AAL) are developing a cloudbased Remote Monitoring and Analytics Platform for the manufacturing sector. The platform will enable production engineers and managers to remotely view factory state, interact with AAL's advanced machine learning models and communicate with on-site staff to effect changes in the production process. This would represent a step-change for how the factory floor can be managed in a remote fashion, for both this and potential future pandemics, or even if remote working is sought to become the norm. Using the tool, engineers and process managers will be able to view the status of their production schedule and current units passing along the manufacturing process, remotely. Additionally, the advanced analytics models which provide predictions on final product quality using novel multivariate analytics can be used to make suggested/theoretical changes to a digital twin, in order to determine the optimal way of making reworks to bring units back to specification, an enabler for facilitating a circular economy for companies. The messaging/workspace component of the application may be used to share the optimal rework strategy for specific units with the skeleton factory floor staff on site, thereby further facilitating transition to Industry 4.0 in the era of advanced analytics.