Industry 4.0 Drives Smart Manufacturing
From the intelligent edge to HPC-enabled modeling and simulation workloads, technology is fueling new approaches and enhanced business outcomes across the manufacturing sector.
Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing
Manufacturing and industrial business operations are being transformed through the convergence of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) systems onto shared, intelligent, industrial-optimized compute platforms. This consolidation creates a responsive, interconnected system that eliminates data silos and provides access to deeper insights—powered by edge computing—and more flexibility and control.
With more intelligence at the edge—enabled by edge compute, artificial intelligence, and workload convergence—manufacturers can capture, process, and store more data from edge devices. That data can be analyzed closer to where it is collected and used, and manufacturers can make adjustments to operational systems in near-real time.
Intelligent edge systems are the backbone of Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing. They enable data and information from multiple sensors, applications, and processes to be analyzed closer to the source, which helps reduce downtime, optimize operations, automate processes, and inform new solutions. Software-defined infrastructures enable near-real-time analytics across the supply chain to further advance efficiency, productivity, and data visibility.
As IT and OT converge, HPC for manufacturing allows manufacturers to deploy modeling and simulation workloads on distributed HPC systems—both in the cloud and on-premises—to help enhance product design, identify production challenges, and improve business results.
Together, these paradigm shifts are transforming manufacturing operations to be smarter, safer, and more efficient.
As your Industry 4.0 partner, Intel can help you accelerate time to value for data-driven, interoperable Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solutions. With our ecosystem of innovators and portfolio of flexible solutions, we can help you develop and integrate intelligent industrial edge and HPC solutions capable of reducing costs, increasing profits, and moving you ahead of the competition.
Our hardware portfolio spans the range of solutions that factories need, and our technology for IoT spans edge, network, data center, and cloud to deliver agile, intelligent IoT infrastructures. From low-power compute that can bring artificial intelligence (AI) to new places to edge servers capable of analytics tasks such as demand forecasting, Intel can help you deploy smart factory solutions capable of realizing new levels of productivity while revealing new opportunities to maximize revenue.
Smart Manufacturing Use Cases
Smart manufacturing and digital manufacturing employ real-time data and connectivity between machines to enable automation and analytics.
Industrial Workload Convergence
A variety of manufacturing workloads—often run on devices distributed throughout the factory—can be virtualized and consolidated onto a single industrial PC (IPC). This convergence enables advantages such as streamlined data and asset management, increased productivity, and near-real-time analytics.
Modeling, Simulation, and Computer-Aided Engineering
Using HPC systems to run complex workloads across hundreds or thousands of nodes in parallel, manufacturers are dramatically accelerating product development, process refinement, and engineering breakthroughs. See what you can achieve with Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors for HPC.
Machine Vision
From asset tracking to robotics, much of what IoT in manufacturing can do for you involves giving machines the ability to see and make decisions in real time. Intel has a variety of ready-to-run solutions and development tools that can speed your path to industrial computer vision.
Predictive Maintenance
By capturing and analyzing real-time machine data, manufacturers can diagnose potential problems before they result in costly malfunctions and failures.
Sustainable Production
Data-rich processes in the manufacturing of goods and services can reveal opportunities to cut down on pollution, conserve natural resources, and reduce energy expenditures.
Industrial Robotics
Automation and machine vision enabled by IoT in manufacturing make discrete manufacturing and process manufacturing more efficient and adaptable. Robots not only increase product quality but can be adjusted on the fly to respond to changes in demand.
5G and Industrial Internet of Things Connectivity
Continuous, high-speed data exchange between machines and enterprise systems is a cornerstone of Industry 4.0. A typical smart factory requires a variety of connectivity solutions, but 5G is revolutionizing the speed and availability of connectivity.
Enabling Industry 4.0
The Intelligent Edge
The consolidation of IT/OT systems into a unified intelligent edge creates a responsive, interconnected system that eliminates data silos and provides access to deeper insights alongside more flexibility and control.
With more intelligence at the edge—enabled by edge compute, artificial intelligence (AI), and other technologies such as Real-Time Computing, Virtualization, Functional Safety, etc.. - manufacturers can capture, process, and store more data from edge devices. That data can be analyzed closer to where it is collected and used, and manufacturers can make adjustments to operational systems in near-real time to reduce downtime, optimize operations, automate processes, and inform new solutions. Software-defined Manufacturing enables near-real-time analytics across the supply chain to further advance efficiency, productivity, and data visibility.
AI in Manufacturing
IIoT devices and connected factories generate immense amounts of data. AI and high-performance computing (HPC) make it possible to quickly and effectively process and analyze everything, resulting in improved efficiency and productivity. For example, connected factory data can generate near-real-time production insights that help enhance your organization’s decision-making. In structural and product design, AI approaches can help engineers define the problem and estimate the resources required to solve it. Physics-based AI enables engineers to project a solution design from a knowledge base of solutions.
Because the manufacturing market encompasses a wide range of operations, solutions designed for AI workloads in this sector must accommodate varying requirements for performance, power, size, form factor, and cost.
Real-Time Computing
In Industrial Automation, certain real-time tasks must be completed within strict deadlines to prevent critical system failures. This necessitates systems executing these tasks operating within predictable and specific time limits, ensuring they can perform operations and respond to events promptly. The ongoing Industrial transformation involves supporting real-time tasks alongside best-effort workloads on the same system by implementing workload or task prioritization for time-sensitive applications.
In addition to real-time operation, the network traffic within the manufacturing environment needs to meet latency requirements. Providing support for Industry standards such as IEEE 802 TSN specification to support time-sensitive applications enables ultra-reliable and low-latency communication and provides an open ecosystem for device inter-operability.
Intel® Time Coordinated Computing (TCC) provides platform optimizations to better support real-time workloads running alongside best-effort workloads. Intel TCC is comprised of silicon and software optimizations that include support for IEEE TSN that reduces latencies and improves clock synchronization to better support real-time workloads.
Virtualization
Virtualization Technology is a key enabler of Workload Consolidation, which involves creating distinct, isolated environments, each with its own operating system, on a single, robust platform. This approach replaces multiple purpose-built hardware machines with a smaller set of general-purpose computing platforms, reducing the overall hardware infrastructure. Organizations can optimize their operations and reduce costs by maximizing the utilization of existing resources. In the manufacturing and Industrial Automation sectors, Virtualization solutions must support the consolidation of both real-time and non-real-time workloads.
Functional Safety
As human-machine interactions become increasingly integral to manufacturing, the importance of Functional Safety has also grown. Functional safety requires implementing automated protection systems capable of detecting and mitigating malfunctions in machine systems, such as robots, to ensure human safety. Adhering to international standards like IEC 61508 (for industrial applications) and ISO 13849 (for robotic controllers) accelerates the development of safety-critical applications.
What Is Industry 4.0 and How Is the Intelligent Edge Driving It?
The Fourth Industrial Revolution—or Industry 4.0—brings the digital and physical together through data. By advancing data capture and analysis at the edge and by unlocking new levels of analytic insight through HPC applications, Industry 4.0 paves the path for new advances in the manufacturing sector.
For example, autonomous smart manufacturing capabilities (such as predictive maintenance to reduce downtime and smart asset tracking for a more efficient supply chain) alongside more-powerful, in-depth, and accurate analytics for applications (such as computational fluid dynamics) mean that Industry 4.0 is primed to unlock new possibilities and business advantages for manufacturers.
With more compute power at the edge, businesses can connect the unconnected, converge and virtualize key workloads, and lay the groundwork to integrate the latest IoT in manufacturing use cases.
In order to bring intelligence to more machines and devices, Industry 4.0 is being enabled by open architectures; standards-based solutions; edge, network, and cloud technology; and other advances. These technologies are allowing businesses to bring the advantages of IT to OT.
Now it’s simpler than ever to create flexible, easy-to-update software-defined infrastructures to manage and optimize machine controls in discrete manufacturing and process manufacturing. With the advent of 5G and lower barriers to implementing AI, factories of all sizes and all levels of digitalization can embrace what Industry 4.0 has to offer.
Smart Manufacturing Success Stories
Industry 4.0 is advancing with Intel® technology. Our partners are finding new ways to transform business results with IoT, analytics, and modeling technologies.
BMW Makes It Easier to Bring AI to the Factory
BMW partnered with Intel and Robotron to overcome barriers to implementing AI in the factory. BMW introduced an Intel-powered system that enables workers to create no-code AI applications while also helping to meet strict labor requirements.
Royal Enfield Expedites Operations and Product Development
Using HPC systems featuring Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, this longstanding motorcycle manufacturer realized 15x faster runtimes for CAE simulations alongside more-efficient product development.
Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing Components
Intel is helping manufacturers adapt and innovate as they adopt data-driven practices and processes.
Industrial PCs
Converge industrial workloads, such as machine controls and HMI, from a disparate array of devices onto a single powerful device with Intel-powered ruggedized IPCs. Our partners offer a range of Intel-based IPCs that support the most-advanced industrial workloads and come with enhancements for real-time functionality.
Intel® Vision Products
Enable the latest smart factory use cases—such as automated product quality inspection—with scalable computer vision solutions from the Intel® portfolio of vision products. We offer a robust choice of general-purpose compute and purpose-built accelerators for machine vision.
Intel® Accelerators
Optimize your industrial systems and meet the unique and challenging requirements of Industry 4.0 use cases with the Intel® portfolio of accelerators that offer flexible performance and workload-specific hardware acceleration.
Intel® Processors for Industrial Internet of Things
Do more with your data by bringing intelligence to the edge. Intel offers a broad portfolio of scalable compute solutions for smart factory and digital manufacturing technologies such as robotics, process automation, and edge analytics.
Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors for Manufacturing HPC Deployments
Find out what makes these compute solutions ideal for powering your distributed modeling, simulation, and CAE workloads.
Software Tools in Manufacturing
Intel® Edge Insights for Industrial
Speed the development and implementation of AI solutions, such as machine vision at the industrial edge, with Intel® Edge Insights for Industrial. This reference software platform offers a prevalidated software reference design for machine vision and time series data ingestion.
Intel® Edge Controls for Industrial
Create smart factory solutions by transforming industrial control systems. This software reference platform has compatible hardware that integrates real-time compute, connectivity, and IT-like virtualization and management.
Intel® oneAPI HPC Toolkit
Streamline development with a free resource that helps you build, analyze, optimize, and scale HPC applications. This toolkit equips you with the latest techniques in vectorization, multithreading, multinode parallelization, and memory optimization so you can more easily build manufacturing software that’s ready for HPC.
Intel® oneAPI AI Analytics Toolkit
Optimize AI and analytics software for HPC with our Intel® oneAPI AI Analytics Toolkit. This resource provides data scientists, AI developers, and researchers with familiar Python tools and AI frameworks to accelerate end-to-end data science and analytics pipelines on Intel® architectures.
Intel® oneAPI Base Toolkit
Unlock cross-industry, open, standards-based programming. The Intel® oneAPI Base Toolkit offers Intel-optimized tools and libraries that help developers accelerate performance and deploy applications across architectures and processing models.
Intel® Distribution of OpenVINO™ Toolkit
Optimize models trained for industrial applications such as machine vision. This comprehensive toolkit allows you to build, optimize, and run high-performance inference with a write-once, deploy-anywhere efficiency.
Built for Industrial and Ready to Run
The Intel® Partner Marketplace includes a wide variety of products and service providers, creating solutions for smart manufacturing, CAE, modeling/simulation, and other Industry 4.0 applications. These solutions are prevalidated and fully interoperable with Intel® architecture—which most businesses rely on—and can help you go from initial idea to long-term value faster.
FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
Industry 4.0 brings digital and physical technologies together to create responsive, interconnected operations. Enabled by the convergence of operational and IT systems on shared, highly industrial, optimized compute platforms, businesses can analyze data across the supply chain and adjust operational systems in near-real time to reduce costs, cut waste, predict problems, and innovate offerings.
Smart manufacturing integrates data and information from multiple applications, processes, and products that can be composed to form new solutions. It enables predictive and adaptive manufacturing and supply chain processes that allow businesses to fulfill requests for customized products more effectively and to respond more quickly to fluctuations in markets through demand forecasting.
Process manufacturing involves combining ingredients and raw materials using a recipe or formula. This approach is frequently employed in industries that produce goods in bulk, such as food and beverages, oil refining, pharmaceuticals, and plastics. Discrete manufacturing is focused on the final assembly of market-ready units such as automobiles and appliances.
With smart factory technologies like predictive maintenance, both process manufacturing and discrete manufacturing can become more efficient from reduced downtime and improved production.
Sustainable manufacturing is a holistic approach to production that involves the application of Industry 4.0 and digital manufacturing technologies to minimize pollution, conserve energy and natural resources, protect the safety of workers, and equitably reward all those involved in production. It requires capturing and analyzing data throughout the entire supply chain and manufacturing process as well as energy and waste management.
The intelligent edge is the fusion of intelligent and scalable compute performance and AI for industrial operational workloads. It enables solutions such as factory digital twins and manufacturing execution systems (MESs). This fusion is enabled by workload convergence and optimization of software infrastructures for edge compute platforms.
Intelligent edge platforms offer a host of benefits, including cost reduction, improved security, heightened productivity, and improved real-time performance. The intelligent edge allows manufacturers to run multiple workloads in standard equipment—eliminating the need to move large volumes of data from on-premises to the cloud. It also enables comprehensive quality management through near-real-time product defect detection, process and supply chain optimization, and an increase in asset utilization. Entirely new business models can also be enabled simply by adding new workloads.
Manufacturers use distributed HPC systems to run highly complex workloads such as crash simulations or fluid dynamic modeling. Because HPC systems are immensely powerful, they’re able to perform the required calculations quickly and within acceptable time parameters. Using a high performance computing architecture for these kinds of HPC analytics, HPC AI, and HPC simulations needs, manufacturers are able to optimize results, adjust designs and systems, and increase efficiency.
HPC systems provide the computational horsepower required by advanced CAE workloads and tasks. Your experts and engineers can leverage the performance and flexibility of HPC systems to increase the scope and depth of their efforts, conduct more-accurate analysis, and expedite time to value for their projects.