Page 58 - Food&Drink Business magazine June 2022

TRENDS & TECHNOLOGY
Manufacturers flock to Industry 4.0 at Leaders’ Forum
A room full of manufacturers at the AUSPACK Leaders’ Forum was testimony to the importance that the packaging and processing sector is currently placing on Industry 4.0. Wayne Robinson reports.
OPEN IIOT EXPERTISE FUELS ADVANCED MANUFACTURING
Attendees made it clear that with manufacturing facing several significant challenges, including supply issues, surging demand, shortened lead times, and rising staffing shortages, Industry 4.0 could be a solution to take them forward.
The Leaders’ Forum at AUSPACK included a panel discussion with vastly experienced industry professionals, and touched on Industry 5.0, which is probably best described as Industry 4.0 with a social conscience.
The session opened with a presentation by CSIRO heavy-hitter Christian Ruberg, the organisation’s Future Digital Manufacturing lead, who said there were “trillion dollar opportunities” in future industries, citing areas including the hydrogen economy and the circular economy as key.
He gave a strong warning that Australia needed to be fully focused, saying Australia “cannot leave the future to the Europeans, the Japanese or the Americans”. He said, “We must work collaboratively. Industry 4.0 is part of the platform, but we must all think strategically.”
Industry 4.0, according to Ruberg, includes the IoT, big data analytics, AI, ML (machine learning), AR and VR, and autonomous machines.
Ruberg said the mega trends pushing manufacturing to Industry 4.0 included AI, climate adaption and new social connections such as 5G, Meta and @Edge. Pitfalls he said included the tyranny of time poverty.
He then went on to outline the six major challenges facing CSIRO as it works to Industry 4.0 implementation for Australian manufacturing, including security for the future, food security, sustainable energy, health and wellbeing, resilient and valuable environments, and future industries.
Following Ruberg’s opening presentation, the Forum
(l-r) Allen Frydman, Barry Hendy, Christian Ruberg and Simon Dawson.
moved to panel mode, where he was joined by Simon Dawson, director of Industrial Transformation at IMCRC; Barry Hendy, MD of ADDE; and Allen Frydman, founder and MD of DC Works.
Dawson spoke first outlining his 30 years’ experience, and why he believes Industry 4.0 will become a major factor in local manufacturing. He cited examples he had already seen, such as a robot laser clamped inside someone’s mouth to perform dental work, and a kangaroo tail being used for human bone repair. When it came to Industry 5.0, he looked to the fashion industry as an example, saying that while Industry 4.0 would enable on-demand clothes manufacturers to make clothes for your exact shape from the data they held, Industry 5.0 would put all that through the matrix of environmental impact.
Frydman said Industry 4.0 would enable the myriad compromises that manufacturing plants have to make continually to be significantly lessened thanks to connectivity.
Hendy, however, said he is still not convinced that Industry 4.0 is “little more than a marketing term”, saying as a systems integrator, his business is already pulling together various parts into a greater whole, and also pointing out the difficulties of data collection from small operators.
Attendees were told that Industry 4.0 was a concept first identified by former German chancellor Angela Merkel. Ruberg made it clear that the world of 10, 20 and 30 years’ time was going to be significantly different to the world of today, and all manufacturing businesses needed to think long and hard about how they were going to adapt to the future, with Industry 4.0 in his view being a major part of that future, for if not, a business, and the country as a whole, would be left trailing behind. ■
Visitors to the Open IIoT stand at AUSPACK this year had a wealth of Industry 4.0 and IIoT information at their fingertips.
Open IIoT members, who represent some of the best-known automation brands in Australia such as Balluff; Beckhoff Automation; KUKA; Nord Drivesystems; SMC ANZ, and ZI-Argus, were on hand to answer visitor questions and to give practical advice to customers for getting the ball rolling on the digital manufacturing journey.
Everywhere a visitor looked there was knowledge to be gained – from informative posters on the walls, to flat-screen TVs playing videos that shared IIoT facts and the benefits of implementation.
However, the clear centre of attraction at the stand was the newly-upgraded interactive demo unit, which showcases all the Open IIoT members’ components working together in unison and communicating their ‘smarts’ to an Industry 4.0 software platform. This was illustrated by programming the demo unit system to circulate various boxes based on their size, colour, texture, RFID and external labelling. An impressive display.
6 MAY-JUNE 2022 MACHINERY MATTERS