Industry 4.0
SMAC has been a supporter of Industry 4.0 since the early 90’s well before this revolution came around in 2015 in the US. We touch all of the main design principals or goals of 4.0:
- Interconnection – connecting SMAC units to other machines or giving users direct access
- Information transparency – Decision making data of the process is available in real time
- Technical assistance – the ability to control select processes too difficult or unsafe for humans
- Decentralized decisions – 100% verification capability, SMAC systems can run autonomously
With our unique technology, SMAC has always shared this vision of giving customers all the data they required in real time to be able to make the best decisions regarding the automation, control and verification of their applications.
Some examples of implementing this technology would be:
Other Trends in Industry 4.0 center around Predictive Maintenance and Self-monitoring. Gone are the days where maintenance personnel walk the manufacturing floor listening for the bang/bang or hiss of a failed or failing pneumatic actuator. Now this air cylinder has been replaced by a quiet, efficient, fully programmable, billions of cycles electric SMAC actuator. Should it even ever require repair or replacement, can send a signal to the PLC that it is getting warm, drawing too much current or has achieved a set number of life cycles and should be reviewed before it fails.