General Electric (GE) often uses the term Brilliant Factory for Industrial Internet applications primarily used to improve the efficiency of the manufacturing processes inside the factory. Brilliant Manufacturing is the enabling technology for brilliant factories. Brilliant Manufacturing enables manufacturers to make precise, real-time decisions through data-driven insights. These solutions are the digital technology behind Brilliant Factories. Another commonly used synonymous term, in the industry is smart manufacturing. Brilliant Manufacturing provides the link between the design, engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, distribution network, and field services into one connected and globally scalable intelligent system. It helps to collect and delivers equipment performance information to the right people in real time so they can make informed, accurate and quick decisions for optimized performance within the manufacturing system.

Next, we will look at the characteristics of the application suite that are needed to achieve the vision of the brilliant factory. The goal of the smart manufacturing applications is to increase the degree of control and optimization of the manufacturing floor machines and processes by the computers and augment the knowledge of the human operators by analyzing the big data from the sensors and the devices in relation to the known production plans and constraints.

MESes have been around in the industry for a while. MESes often work in near real time to enable the control of multiple elements of the production process such as material inputs, operators, machines in the assembly lines, and the support services. In short, MESes act as the control system for managing and monitoring work-in-process (WIP) on a factory floor. CEMENTruck would also need capability that provides plant-floor visibility of all work in process as the cementing truck is manufactured. Such applications can help eliminate the blind spots that Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) and MES may often have during the movement of the materials through the manufacturing stations. This would result in lower working capital and increased ability to adhere to delivery schedules of the trucks. This is turn may provide increased visibility and improved parts forecast to the suppliers of the parts and raw materials. The use of WIP management applications can help track the routes (the specific path based on the operations to be performed per the work orders) through the factory of the trucks.

CEMENTruck can also look at applications that can monitor the machine health and help improve the throughput. To accomplish this, some of the machines and the assembly lines may have to be retrofitted by sensors to allow collection of the relevant data. Coupled with the use of quality applications, this can help reduce scrap material rates and help with the cost control of material and process costs.

After looking at the fit gap analysis for the smart manufacturing related applications, we will now analyze the requirements for the field service technicians in order to carry out out their work smoothly and efficiently.