The process of embracing new technology, and equally important, finding a way to pay for new technology, can be ominous and scary for small to medium-sized business owners.
But what’s the alternative? Falling behind when trying to keep up with your competitors? Becoming irrelevant and going out of business?
With the fourth industrial revolution under way, most businesses have no choice but to warm up to new technology, get educated about it, and implement it into their business operations.
On Feb. 16, Macomb County Planning and Economic Development rolled out the first of its new Industry 4.0 Workshops for 2023 designed to help businesses make the leap to new technology and help their companies run more efficiently. The workshop took place at the Velocity Center in Sterling Heights.
The first workshop, Internet of Things and Cloud Computing, was attended by approximately 80 business owners and high school and college students from across metropolitan Detroit. It is one of five workshops planned for 2023 that are all connected and designed to take businesses into the next generation of technology-based efficient operations.
“As my old boss in the stamping industry used to say, if he doesn’t hear the stamping press going ‘boom, boom, boom,’ that means he’s not making money,” keynote speaker George Singos said. “That was his Internet of Things/Industry 4.0. If your equipment isn’t running, if you don’t hear the noise, you probably aren’t making money.”
Singos is the business leader advisor for the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center (MMTC), where about 25% of its budget is dedicated strictly to I4.0 applications. In the last four years, the MMTC has done about 500 business assessments, helping companies adjust to and embrace I4.0 technology and applications. He said about 80% of their clients are most interested in the Internet of Things, system integration and big data.
“They don’t know what they don’t know,” Singos said.
With cloud computing, companies have the opportunity to connect different devices to the cloud. Connections can include AI and machine learning, databases and centers, networking, containers, computing, virtual machines, storage and security.
Many times there are different types of software that need to be connected. Companies may have Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), quality management software, engineering software, but none of it talks to each other. Part of the I4.0 program includes connecting those resources.
Singos used as an example how an old Bridgeport milling machine, built in 1946, can be connected to modern technology using sensors, no different than connecting it to a modern, multi-million dollar machine. And those two pieces of equipment can work together in tandem in the same facility.
Singos offered a five-step adoption model to add cloud computing to a production operation:
- Physical production process and the addition of sensors
- Process control and using the sensors to manipulate the production process
- Manufacturing control, which includes monitoring, supervisory control and automated control of the production process.
- Manufacturing operations management, which includes work flow/recipe control to produce the desired end product and also maintaining records and optimizing the production process.
- Business planning and logistics, which includes establishing the basic plant schedule, production, material use, delivery, shipping and determining inventory levels.
Heidi Devroy, CEO of Prosper Tech Machine & Tool in Richmond, started adopting I4.0 strategies after attending a trade show. Devroy, whose company was founded in 2007, sat on a discussion panel at the workshop with Mike Rumel of Fisher Dynamics and John Babi of L&L Products.
“We’re starting to plug all of the holes. It’s kind of like a puzzle, because once we started this journey, then we went to cybersecurity,” Devroy said. “We’re currently putting in a MES system. And you (Singos) started talking about sensors, and that got my heart racing, thinking ‘that’s next.’ To me, why wouldn’t you want to get on this journey? Because you’re either going to walk this road or jump on an elevator to get there. These tools help you get there faster and make a better company.”
The second I4.0 workshop will discuss system integration, Big Data and analytics and take place April 13 at the Advanced Technology Education Center on 12 Mile Road in Warren. The workshop will run from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.
If you’d like to learn more, go to macombnext.com/2023-workshops to sign up. The workshops are free, but registration is required.
Don Gardner is a communications specialist for Macomb County Planning and Economic Development.
