The Connected Plant Conference in Charlotte, NC was a great opportunity to witness how industrial Internet of Things (IoT) is transforming the power and chemical process industries. Coming from the semiconductor industry, I attended with a two-fold mission. First, I wanted to compare and contrast the highly automated and data-rich cleanroom factories of Intel with factories in other industries. Second, I wanted to connect the line between Intel, a developer of fundamental IoT technologies, and the IoT customers at the opposite end of the value chain.
These industries are being pushed to adopt industrial IoT because they are continuous processes with high ROI in reacting quickly- and high cost in failing to do so. Their processes are closely integrated, meaning it is not always possible to isolate equipment without process-wide consequences.
I believe that the fundamental driver for the power industry is the continuously changing supply and demand for electricity. A large amount of dynamic data needs to be constantly analyzed while various assets need to be managed together in response. One company even proposed technology that would enable operators to see how much money they were making or losing with on-the-floor changes. Chemical companies, on the other hand, are driven by the integrated nature of their processes. There are large costs associated with shutting down and restarting them as materials and energies need to be rebalanced.
Industrial IoT is utilized in the semiconductor industry for different reasons. Unlike the power and chemical process, making silicon is a batch process with redundancies at various operations. There is room to take tools down. Also, it is possible to discard some bad die from a mostly good wafer. The real driver is the sensitivity of these nanometer-scale processes. Process drifts that are negligible in power or chemicals could be product killers for thousands of transistors on a small chip. For example, misalignment of a printed pattern by 5 nanometers will most likely be detected first before excessive vibrations in the tool generate signals.
There was one more driver that I surprised me: the need to codify human expertise and experience. Many companies there were concerned about an aging workforce, and a lack of interest from younger people to continue the work. These companies believe that technology could preserve and replicate- at least to a point- the collective years of talent of their workforce. And indeed with the growth of artificial intelligence, I believe this is possible. This driver is important for anyone afraid of technology as a “job killer” to understand. Technology can not only create jobs as much as it makes jobs obsolete. Technology can also save jobs by enabling the next generation to build on the work of their predecessors.
An industrial IoT technology provider like Intel will benefit from understanding these drivers. First, a good solution will be fast and agile. Operators should be empowered to make real-time decisions, or be able to trust a machine to make automated accurate decisions. Second, the various assets being connected must speak a common language. Connectivity should improve understanding of how assets influence one another for integrated process improvements. Third, and most interestingly, technology can go beyond just analyzing equipment data and making changes on its own in a human-less black box operation. It can also analyze “human data”: a history of human decisions and what influenced them. Doing this can make plants safer and more secure. It can even lead more efficient computational methods. After all, the leading model for machine learning is with neural networks patterned after the brain.
I am glad I went to the conference despite being the only one not directly working in the power or chemical industries. In fact, I wish more people with my background attended to enjoy the many lessons I learned. Technology is growing so fast that there is just too much to learn for only one isolated individual. Humans themselves need to be more interconnected since thriving in “Industry 4.0” will require combined domain expertise (power, chemicals, semiconductors, etc.) and expertise with the technology itself. I am excited to see the new levels of productivity that more connected industries will achieve.
Enzo Borja Mangubat 