Efficiency is the basis of competition between industrial sites. To increase efficiency, it must be tracked, and this is what Industry 4.0, RFID, and IoT have facilitated.
Energy costs are fluctuating wildly and supply chains remain problematic, so industrial managers are looking to more holistic strategies that help streamline operations and reduce waste. Increasingly, sustainability and safety are not seen as threats to efficiency, but are married to it. Below are five solutions that can help industrial facilities.
Boosting visibility through strategic identification
One of the most immediate ways to improve site productivity is to make sure that each and every asset, pipe and hazard is identified clearly and tracked. Using strategic industrial identification from Brady UK can help facilities create a more transparent environment where information is available when needed, rather than retrospectively.
High performance labeling and signage can immediately boost industrial asset tracking capabilities. This keeps the data flowing. Visibility creates a digital-physical link, and real-time asset data feeds into predictive maintenance models. Tools, machinery, components, among other items can be tagged so that workers spend less time looking for them. LEDs can light up the right part as it understands the context of the assembly line.
This has the secondary benefit of improving safety solutions. It can also extend to lockout/tagout systems
Value in waste heat recovery and thermal storage
A lot of heat is produced and lost in the atmosphere. And when energy prices are high, wasted energy is throwing money down the drain. It might be exhaust from a furnace or steam from a cooling process – it’s all a financial leak.
Waste heat recovery (WHR) systems can capture this thermal energy to then repurpose it. It may preheat incoming fluids, or perhaps converting it into electricity via organic Rankine cycles. This helps a site become more self-sufficient and energy independent, isolating it from market shocks.
To get the most out of WHR, sites are turning to advanced thermal storage solutions. These allow facilities to store captured heat during periods of low demand and deploy it when production begins to ramp up. It turns the factory into a thermal battery, and sites could even sell their energy load for revenue.
Streamlining with lean manufacturing principles
Efficiency is as much about mindset and culture as it is about advanced machinery or new technology. Lean manufacturing remains one of the most effective frameworks for driving operational excellence in manufacturing. It’s all about the relentless elimination of waste, which includes:
- Unnecessary transport of materials
- Surplus inventory sitting in storage
- Motion of people and equipment
- Waiting for the next step
- Overproduction ahead of actual demand
- Overprocessing beyond customer requirements
- Defects requiring rework or scrap
By implementing lean tools like 5S, Kaizen, and Value Stream Mapping, managers find bottlenecks that were hidden (they’re most hidden when they’re embedded into daily routines). Improving industrial workplace efficiency is to empower the workforce and suggest incremental changes – it’s cultural, and it’s something that must be communicated frequently. Instead of relying on just data to spot inefficiencies, the workers can spot them too. Ground-up mandates can be more true to life.
Automating logistics through automated guided vehicles
The movement of materials within a warehouse or factory is where we see a lot of hidden inefficiency, cost and human error. Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) are precisely the solution to automate this – getting raw materials, components, and finished goods from A to B without a human.
Unlike forklifts, AGVs operate on a set of either programmed paths, which can struggle to improvise, or sophisticated LiDAR sensors, which can navigate dynamically through novel contexts. This keeps the flow of materials constant without the risk of fatigue-related accidents.
AGVs allow human workers to be reassigned and focus on more cognitive tasks that require nuanced problem-solving skills rather than repetitive hauling. Because they can be integrated directly into the facility’s Warehouse Management System (WMS), they are also a source of data unlike humans. This may result in leaner inventory levels or spotting further inefficiencies.
Adopting industrial symbiosis for a circular economy
Finally, the broader view of industrial efficiency is if we zoom out and look at the surrounding industrial ecosystem. Industrial symbiosis is a subset of the circular economy and it’s where the waste or by-products of one industry become the raw materials for another. It’s collaborative, and it minimizes waste disposal costs to even create new revenue streams. One factory’s trash is another factory’s treasure.
This can help decouple industrial growth from virgin resource extraction, something that is increasingly important in a world more conscious and regulating of finite resources.
Industrial sites can lower their environmental footprint too, which may reduce taxation and improve ESG compliance, all while improving their bottom line. Exchanges may include:
- Sharing excess steam with refineries
- Converting organic waste into biogas
- Recycling wastewater for cooling systems
- Repurposing minerals for construction material
With more wars and a breakdown of the International order, energy and supply chains are being hit at a time of exponential technological progress. But rather than relying on new Tech, we can also improve strategy, even through age-old principles, to improve efficiency and shelter from market shocks.