As a result of what people refer to as the 4th industrial revolution, machines will be ‘smart’. In the context of Zensor this means that machines will be able to tell on beforehand if they’re going to break down or warn you when they’re not any more generating the products within the required quality specs. The end goal: maximal availability and maximal yield.
Who’s best placed to realize this? Is it the machine builder, or the owner of the production site? There’s arguments in favor of both, so we’re curious to see which direction it will head in.
In favor of the Machine builder, one can say that they of course know there machine’s best. Also they are best placed to integrate sensors in a cost-effective way into a machine and installation.
As an argument pro the plant owner, one can bring up that the goal of the plant owner is not always perfectly aligned with the goal of the machine builder. Also specific process knowledge is not always present at the machine builder.
As a final point: how open will machine builders be in sharing information with other machine builders?
In order to properly monitor the health and performance of a machine, in almost all cases it is essential to also have data coming from the machines and installations located right before or after the one monitored. Will machine builders be totally open and share their raw data, or will information walls arise?