IIoT: Three Surefire Steps to Success

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is an enormous opportunity for manufacturers. It fuels greater productivity and agility by increasing data communication between systems, people, and processes. For example, machine data sharing enables employees and systems to respond to real-time issues requiring adjustments to calibration. You just need to know how to best leverage the opportunity.

Start with the Cloud

The first step is connectivity. Cloud, and more specifically manufacturing cloud ERP, is the only practical way to become a connected manufacturing enterprise. In this case, all information—from supply chain to customer data to production data—lives in one place and is accessible to all users. Without cloud, it is overly complex and extremely difficult to ensure the proper real-time communication and information consolidation needed to drive data-centric decisions.

Create a Single Source of Truth

Connecting data from your entire enterprise into one database that everyone can access creates one source of truth. That means you can translate information into actionable insight. A cloud ERP solution should do this for you—without a ton of IT investment—because it’s already set up for connectivity. If the ERP system is built for manufacturing, then you also have automation and MES capabilities that connect your plant floor to your top floor.

Connect Data for More Visibility

At MFC Netform, a metalforming manufacturer of components used for powertrains in automotive and agriculture, the focus is on reducing the amount of scrap waste. The company’s machine vision inspection system automatically rejects a part when it doesn’t meet quality specifications. Then they pull the accumulated value of the scrapped part from the ERP system and multiply it by the number of scrapped units. This allows the operator to see the actual “value” of the waste rather than a bunch of parts in a bin.

Because the entire enterprise is connected through cloud ERP to a single database, this information and any related reporting is accessible to all users. The ability to automatically correlate plant floor machine inspection results and product values in cloud ERP to produce an accurate waste cost is just one example of how IIoT enables more visibility. The possibilities are endless.

Unleash the value of IIoT in your manufacturing enterprise. Watch the on-demand webcast now.