AI • IOT • NETWORK EDGE

Automation has been key to improving business operations in so many ways—from increasing manufacturing speed to enhancing the accuracy of error-prone manual processes. But what about improving sustainability practices? And do we even think about factories having sustainability practices? We should. But it’s a bit more complicated than automating the lights in an office building when no one’s there; in manufacturing, downtime isn’t always part of the picture.

Our guest Anna Kiseleva, Product Manager from NEXCOM International subsidiary NexAIoT, paints the green-manufacturing picture for us. She talks about why going green is important, technologies that companies should have in their automation tool sets to get there, and the future of manufacturing sustainability (Video 1). Because going green is only going to become more important going forward—not just for factories, but for everyone. And manufacturers may start their journeys down this path because of regulations, but they may just find that becoming energy efficient can lead to the optimization of all kinds of resources in the end.

What does green manufacturing mean, and why is it important for Industry 4.0?

Let’s talk about what it means to be environmental-friendly as a company. First and foremost, reducing power consumption is a fundamental aspect of environmental conservation, because excessive energy use contributes to depletion of natural resources and increased carbon emissions, leading to climate change and ecological degradation. By adopting greener practices, industries can mitigate their ecological footprints, preserving ecosystems and biodiversity.

Therefore, the first step in being an environmentally friendly manufacturer is reducing power consumption. The second is automated combustion control, which also helps to reduce emissions. The third part of it is minimizing waste and promoting recycling, such as using automation to sort and recycle factory waste materials. Fourth, sustainable supply chain management to track and manage commodities sourcing. Fifth is green logistics and transportation by adopting hybrid and green vehicles and autonomous or smart logistics systems. And the last part of the whole sustainability effort is worker safety, to reduce the risk of accidents and improve efficiency.

Right now, green manufacturing and industrial sustainability focus a lot on carbon-emission reduction. We need to monitor power consumption in the first place, because this is where most waste comes from. If power consumed is not needed for the factory, it will lead to increased expenses and, of course, not very sustainable practices. So we need to monitor every device; we need to connect them, monitor them, and track where improvements can be made.

It’s important to mention that many traditional manufacturers face challenges that slow down this transition toward sustainability. This includes lack of networking capabilities in old production equipment, incomplete production-management systems, low equipment-utilization rates, long product-delivery times, and insufficient information transparency.

“By adopting greener practices, industries can mitigate their ecological footprints, preserving ecosystems and biodiversity.” —Anna Kiseleva, NexAIoT via @insightdottech

How does NexAIoT help factories meet that checklist?

NexAIoT provides a one-stop service to help, including industrial IoT and automation products, customer–systems integration projects, and consulting services for building whole-factory smart manufacturing.

Basically, we can divide our tools into three main categories: One is smart meters and controllers to collect data from equipment locally. The second is gateways to collect data from various controllers and upload the collected data to the cloud. And the third is servers to store a huge amount of data. NexAIoT provides all industrial equipment needed for this solution. With these tools we can reduce carbon emissions and impact the carbon footprint accordingly.

We’re talking first about tools that will help us collect data from the bottom of the factory—from the production line—upload it to the cloud, and then visualize that data so that managers can make more strategic decisions. These are our NexDATA and NexWall platforms for digitalization and visualization. They will also track the data in the cloud for future AI-model training and predictions. Once the data is collected, we also help our customers with the software to visualize it.

To achieve green manufacturing, all the equipment should be connected. That is the second thing. Our AI-enabled edge getaway tools for analog and digital inputs and outputs—called nDAS and nPAC—can be used as data collectors, as well as edge monitoring devices for more efficient connectivity performance. We also have a NISE series that redirects data and uploads it to the cloud. Basically, these tools help collect all the information from sensors and send it to the cloud so more data and decision-making can be done at the edge side for better communication from machine to machine.

Once machine-to-machine communication is established, we can move to the next level. And while monitoring the operation status of the entire factory’s equipment, our solution will also start researching ways to reduce carbon emissions and prepare for carbon-tax policies.

Here’s the core: Our industrial computers will help collect data from the field, upload the data to the cloud, visualize the data for managers, and will also help with AI models to do some predictions.

Can you give us any real-world examples from NexAIoT?

Recently we have been working on some factory-automation projects in Taiwan. The government there has regulations regarding power consumption and sustainability indicators. One of the main KPIs for factories is their total yearly power consumption. Typically, a factory will apply for a certain electricity capacity and pay for it accordingly. Then, at the end of the year, the factory will have to report its actual power-consumption numbers to the government.

Ideally, the amount of electricity applied for will equal what was used during the year. If what is used exceeds the amount applied for, the factory will have to pay a fine. If the value is lower than expected, then the factory will have ended up paying for some amount of electricity that it did not need. So the question from our clients is how can the factory managers know that KPI for the factory at the beginning? How can the factory know its baseline?

Typically, what we see is that manufacturers will apply for a higher power-consumption limit and end up paying more than what they really need. But after installing our automation solutions and smart meters in the factory, our clients can estimate that baseline for the factory; then they can apply for only the amount of power that they really need.

Also in Taiwan, once you apply for a certain power limit, then every year you will have to reduce that power consumption by 1%. But how do you achieve this goal? The factory manager faces the problem of not knowing what to turn off: “Should I stop the production line? Should I turn off the AC system?”

One of our customers, an aluminum manufacturer, received penalties from the government every year. But the factory managers couldn’t understand why. What equipment was the most power consuming? Many different electric panels were connected to the power meters, so there was no way to trace the power consumption through the whole system.

We will work with a factory—either with a new factory or with an old factory that requires modernization—to install all the required automation solutions and then help them trace their power consumption. With the aluminum manufacturer we installed our nDAS smart meters and the whole automation solution so that we could see where the main power consumption was and which equipment was consuming the most energy. Then they could do the adjustment—maybe turn off the equipment when it wasn’t in use.

Eventually these practices will lead to green manufacturing. Even if green manufacturing was not the manufacturer’s goal in the beginning, by adopting these practices—as well as by lowering their power consumption by 1% each year—companies will start to adopt more and more green manufacturing practices.

Talk about the partnerships NexAIoT has established to help provide these solutions.

Basically, NexAIoT solutions are based on Intel technologies that have been used in factory automation to bring unparalleled precision, efficiency, and flexibility to manufacturing processes. Of course, we have other providers, but Intel is the main one.

The new generation of Intel CPU has a lot of enhanced features—for example, the low-power Intel Atom^® or Celeron processors with Intel Time-Sensitive Networking, or the high-performance Intel^® Core^™ processors that include Intel Time Coordinated Computing to reduce latency and provide real-time control. This is all very crucial in our applications, because we need real-time data to be uploaded to the cloud and to do the calculations and predictions. Intel processors also support multi-display outputs, and this allows them to work on different workloads at the same time for better efficiency.

We are very grateful to have Intel as our partner so that we can achieve our automation-project goals and bring our customers the best solutions we can.

How do you foresee these technologies evolving to address green manufacturing?

Future advancements will focus on reducing energy consumption, optimizing resource usage, and integrating more sustainable practices. NexAIoT is looking at ways to use AI to optimize factory operations and achieve ESG goals. We are also investigating the use of AI to identify and mitigate production-process bottlenecks. AI-model optimization can also help carbon-emission optimizations.

Coming up, we are preparing an AI system that is all Llama-based GPT for manufacturers’ CO₂ management. Other advancements will include AI automation, real-time training, and AI models to help water treatment plants.

Another trend is AI-model customization, because you cannot use one AI model for all factories. They are all different and require different procedures and different data tracking. But whether their goals are to reduce power consumption or to recycle or to reduce waste in the factory, there will be more and more customized AI models.

The incorporation of edge computing and cloud technologies into manufacturing processes aligns with green manufacturing objectives by promoting resource efficiency, reducing waste, optimizing energy consumption, and enhancing overall sustainability in production operations.

There will undoubtedly be many challenges along the way—as well as new possibilities. This is to be expected and embraced. Green manufacturing is not just another solution; it’s a long-term journey to continue improving manufacturing practices for greater efficiency, sustainability, and profitability.

Related Content

To learn more about green manufacturing, listen to A Greener Path for Manufacturers and read Smart Factory Tech Proves Data Is Power. For the latest innovations from NexAIoT, follow them on LinkedIn.

This article was edited by Erin Noble, copy editor.