On April 2, 2014, I attended a webinar titled Enabling Smart Factories – The Transformation of Manufacturing Systems & Factory Facilities, hosted by Advantech and presented by Dr. Jay Lee. What I expected was a nebulous discussion of vague academic concepts. What I got was real-world insight into actionable strategies for optimizing industrial systems.
Dr. Lee’s presentation helped me better grasp the potential of the Internet of Things and Big Data to transform manufacturing and industrial processes, and I’m confident it will do the same for you. It runs approximately 45 minutes and is available here, albeit not in its original live format. Meanwhile, I’ll share what I found most significant in the webinar in this blog, dedicating a separate note to each of Dr. Lee’s main topics.
Dr. Lee is a Professor at the University of Cincinnati where his research focuses on Industrial Big Data Informatics, Cyber-Physical Systems and Dominant Innovation for Product Service Systems. He is also the founding director of the Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems (IMS), an integral component of the National Science Foundation’s Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (I/UCRC).
As its name suggests, the I/UCRC facilitates collaboration between universities and industrial concerns, enabling direct implementation by industry of the fruits of relevant academic research. The I/UCRC program has spread to 60 campus centers involving more than 900 professors, 1500 graduate students and 300 undergraduates. More importantly, it has produced several thousand Masters and Ph.D. graduates who now serve directly in industrial applications.
Among those 60 I/UCRC centers, the IMS plays the key role of “developing tools, technologies and methods for enabling products and systems to achieve and sustain near-zero breakdown performance with self-maintenance capabilities.” If nothing else here earns your full attention, “near-zero breakdown performance” and “self-maintenance capabilities” should. Dr. Lee’s presentation convinced me that these are far more than lofty academic concepts – they are realistic and obtainable goals!
His webinar presentation is organized into five main topics, and I’ll summarize each in subsequent installments. They are:
- Mega Trends and Unmet Needs;
- Driving Forces and Emerging Technologies (Big Data, Agent, Industry 4.0 and Cyber-Physical Systems);
- Successful Case Studies;
- Potential Business Opportunities; and
- An Introduction to Advantech’s Smart Factory Products
Bottom line: Few experts are as qualified as Dr. Lee to assist manufacturing concerns in optimizing their IoT and Big Data strategies. I was aware before experiencing Dr. Lee’s presentation that academia was helping transform specific industries, but I had no idea how academic research was being translated into actionable industrial strategies. Now I know: Programs like IMS are how.