Digitalization and automation are game changers. They enable those on the shop floor to optimize continuous data flows to gain valuable insights into the lifecycle of products and production for smart decision-making. Integrating advanced technology helps to streamline processes, optimize resources, boost productivity, reduce errors and enable real-time monitoring.
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Accelerating Industry 4.0 with data insights
Orange Business has used its unique skill set as a global integrator, communications operator and service provider to develop a Mini Factory demo based on a production line for coffee capsules. The objective: secure processes and operations together with optimized performance to retain a competitive edge.
Demonstrating the benefits of digital transformation, the demo highlights Orange Business integration capabilities alongside its industry-forward solutions, which draw on data collected from across the production environment. These scalable and flexible solutions can be deployed on greenfield or brownfield sites.
Managing data effectively gives those on the shop floor meaningful insights into what is happening on the production line and beyond as the basis for smart decision-making.
A reliable and robust network infrastructure
Orange Business uses an optical-ring architecture for the network infrastructure, providing scalable IP and Ethernet connectivity compatible with most industrial protocols and controllers. This offers high bandwidth to securely move large volumes of data around, and fast, thanks to the 5G low-latency routers. The network supports production facility availability and real-time transport automation of protocols. It also shores up resilience to cyber threats. A robust backup capability means that it can recover from failure in the space of a few milliseconds.
An enhanced approach to security
Manufacturing has increasingly become a focus for cybercriminal activities. Cyberattacks that begin in the IT network can easily be transverse to unsecured OT environments, allowing malicious actors to gain access to both information and operations. Cybersecurity has never been more critical. Thus, the network infrastructure is complemented by robust cybersecurity. The solution identifies potential threats by offering proactive, real-time monitoring, enabling businesses to prevent attacks and protect their production by ensuring operational continuity.
To identify these risks, which have been amplified by increased connectivity and difficulty in managing technical debt, such as obsolescence, vulnerabilities and native industrial protocols, IT and security teams need a view of the entire estate. The Orange Business solution underscores how complete visibility can minimize operational risk.
Harnessing Live Objects
Orange Business spotlights Live Objects, a platform that seamlessly connects machines with data systems. This data, once harvested, is sent to a cloud for visualization, which can also be developed into solutions for the remote management of factory machines. Live Objects can also be used with suites of cloud tools, including Power BI, an interactive data visualization tool designed to focus on business intelligence.
A dashboard provides a view of various indicators tailored to each production run. This can give a view of the health of systems, significantly reducing downtime and providing alerts for red-flag anomalies. To put its importance into perspective, downtime costs every factory at least 5% of its productive capacity up to 20%.1 Smart insight can also reduce maintenance costs by around 20%, improve safety and dramatically improve maintenance schedules.
Collecting vital KPIs for analysis and remote factory troubleshooting is key for optimizing performance. Orange Business can help clients incorporate a secure, flexible Internet data gateway into production facilities.
Supervising production lines
SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) is central to industrial supervision. Here, Orange Business optimizes and secures production line management and processes through real-time data collection and remote equipment control. It can interface with the manufacturing execution system (MES) and/or enterprise resource planning (ERP) software to determine what a production line should produce and report on actual production.
Data from industrial equipment is aggregated, stored, analyzed and output in various forms, including control screens and reports, using the dashboard. This can monitor machine status and performance data to improve the productivity and operational efficiency of the environment.
This supervision is critical. Orange Business has attained a 15 to 20% improvement in OEE (machine utilization rate) via appropriate insight depending on the manufacturing or process industry type.
A production failure is estimated to generate at least €157,000 in losses in one hour. Adopting optimization solutions becomes therefore, in consequence, a strategic choice.2
Adopting technology in the quality control process
Various technologies can be applied for quality control. In the case of coffee capsules, a thermic camera can check that they are sealed properly and uniformly and have no flaws. Quality control using diagnostic systems leads to higher quality products, greater customer satisfaction and streamlined after-sales service, which creates a superior product chain. This clearly shows how quality control processes can minimize errors, reduce waste and improve overall efficiency.
Measuring ESG performance
The solution makes it possible to analyze the energy consumption of production lines and calculate the CO2eq (carbon footprint indicator) and the proportion of renewable energy, which are key elements of sustainable development reports and circular economy programs. The Mini Factory shows how manufacturers can better understand the energy usage of their machines and how patterns can be optimized.
Orange Business can also offer digital solutions for collecting sensitive data in a trusted ecosystem and managing the environmental impact of the product life cycle.
The factory of the future begins now
The factory of the future is evolving fast as digital technologies are rapidly applied to advance manufacturing features. Interconnected systems such as IoT, cloud solutions and process automation linked to data analysis, machine learning and artificial intelligence enable manufacturers to address fast-changing customer demands and customization.
Sebastien Dudreuilh, Head of Smart Industries France, Orange Business
1 The International Society of Automation
2 Senseye, 2021
Emmanuel joined the Orange Group in 1991 and has worked in various B2B and wholesale positions in France, USA and Belgium. He joined Orange Business in 2013 and was appointed Vice President Industries 4.0 in 2019. In March 2022, he became Vice President Smart Industries with the responsibility to develop Orange Business business across all Business Units through a customer centric approach on the Industries.