The value and significance of digitalization lies in how to respond to VUCA manufacturing changes - it is to transform complexity and uncertainty, fuzzy and changeable into a state of "stable, certain, controllable and flexible" through digital technology.

Therefore, the value of digitalization includes at least the following aspects:

1. Software-defined manufacturing-digitization makes manufacturing more flexible

The meaning of digitalization is its flexibility.SAP HR Like traditional machines, if they want to change products, they often require a lot of mechanical adjustments. For example, when binding a book, when we want to bind a new book, it needs to change the width of the book. , format height, gluing position, pressure, etc. are mechanically adjusted. When it is changed to a digital servo system for adjustment, it only needs to set parameters, and the system will automatically complete these tasks. Traditionally, this would take 1.5 hours, but now it only takes 2 seconds to complete - thus improving machine changeover time in changing production.

2. Collaboration - Make efficiency higher

In fact, the continuity of process industries, such as petroleum refining, metallurgy, pharmaceuticals and other process industries,sap implementation services inherently requires better automation control. Discrete manufacturing has always been truly "discrete" in the past, with equipment moving from one unit to another according to a certain layout. Therefore, if these productions can be made as continuous as processes, it will make production more efficient. Therefore, the first step was to use conveyor belts to form a continuous production line with robots. However, it was later discovered that these mechanical production lines could not be effectively organized. People developed flexible conveying systems, whose essence is to digitize the production process. , transforming the original mechanical dumb system into a digital manufacturing system that can be collected, transmitted, and programmed by software.

Mechanical collaboration includes the introduction of robots and flexible conveying technology.sap erp hk At the software level, it is the integration of communication. Communication often represents a connection in a physical sense, while communication represents a connection in a software sense. Therefore, digital communication is also a collaboration issue. Through information modeling, modular electromechanical systems will be driven by state machines to achieve collaboration. This is also the collaborative meaning of industrial communication systems.

3. Knowledge discovery and reuse

The formation of human knowledge and experience relies on long-term investment - the difference between knowledge and experience is that knowledge can be described by mathematical formulas, while experience cannot be described and is hidden in the brains of engineers and technicians. Therefore, if knowledge is to be reused, it must be turned into software, and if experience is to be reused, it needs to be mined through data-driven modeling—this is the mathematical meaning of AI.

4. Continuous cost reduction

Digital design and digital operations can tap potential waste, improve it and increase cost efficiency. Digitalization can help us reduce costs. This is because there is huge waste hidden in the production system we are accustomed to. From the perspective of lean production, this waste is ubiquitous, so a large number of cost reduction programs are needed. .

5. Resource sharing

Including the code and algorithm resources of the digital world, network resources (open), and knowledge resources (such as openAI of generative AI). Digital resources are easier to share than a loaf of bread, which can go bad, but a digital resource can be easily maintained and copied.

Digital resources are also easier to process, just like film can develop photos, but photos in film are not as easy to be processed by software such as Photoshop as digital photos.

6. Smarter systems

In the manufacturing system, initially, the human brain controls production. Later it was replaced by a controller with a predetermined program. The advantage of this controller is that it sets potential possibilities, uses the program to implement "If-Then" statements to judge various scenarios, and then calls the existing processing unit . Therefore, in the past large-scale standardized production, it was a production process under existing rules.

However, with the changes in product varieties, materials and processes, it is no longer possible to formulate all the rules, or the existing knowledge is not enough to define various changing parameters. Then, people need this system to have the "learning" ability to evolve better production adaptive parameters and evolve better identification and judgment capabilities. To replace the strong uncertainty of human empirical judgment and the inconsistency that changes with people.

7. Need for faster response capabilities

Digital systems can provide faster responses for several reasons:

Information interaction speed: Through faster information transmission, problems can be quickly gathered for rapid analysis and judgment. The smaller time granularity improves responsiveness.

Processing power: If a task is arranged, it can be calculated by humans, but through the digital system, the calculation and re-planning of this arrangement can be quickly realized.

Faster iteration: Continuous improvement, for digital systems, is extremely fast. Because, in the iteration in the digital system, it can be improved with the next iteration.

This is a problem that real-time networks need to solve - the bottom layer of digitalization is of course the support of network communications. Whether it is within equipment, between equipment, production lines and production management, or cloud systems, they all need a faster time-granularity network to support them.