The digitization of production plants is an important topic for medium-sized and large companies. In order to remain competitive nationally and internationally, it is imperative to obtain digitized data from all production facilities. This is the only way to make intelligent decisions in the interests of the company.
When deciding on an IIoT solution, the provider plays a significant role. Traditionally, customers in Europe like to fall back on complete solutions from established companies. In addition, there is still a certain skepticism towards Industry 4.0, as it is still seen as a new technology.
Therefore, it is time to recognize the added value and usability of edge solutions that can be handled flexibly. In most cases, tools from smaller companies on the market can be easily integrated into existing ecosystems. This results in useful additions to facilitate data procurement, data sharing and its processing.
For efficient and transparent work, flexible edge solutions are an alternative for bringing desired data to the cloud. Companies can pick and choose the applications and interfaces they need to generate relevant data and forward it securely. In the end, the customer has a sensible solution without having to replace existing systems at great expense.
There are several ways to move data from the shopfloor to the cloud. Quantis has an innovative edge solution in place to transfer data from all major platform providers to the appropriate cloud via a data bridge. This creates unprecedented flexibility to send data in parallel to any 3rd party provider, depending on customer requirements.
For example, companies can receive data for line monitoring via Siemens Mindsphere in the AWS Cloud, and at the same time receive data for energy management in the SAP S4 Hana Cloud! This way, relevant data arrives securely and flexibly at the corresponding platform provider.
The edge solution from Quantis starts on the production floor to read out sensor and machine data on the store floor level and forward it in processed form. Through years of process know-how, Quantis finds the required information even without an OEM.
Previously, it was also not possible to perform a protocol change in a way that would allow data to be sent to multiple cloud solutions. Often, IIoT vendors send their data directly from the edge to the cloud to avoid the problem, which poses a huge security risk. With Quantis, the edge solution has the data bridge alongside it, which does a protocol switch and encryption for all the data so that it is transferred securely to the cloud.
After the data transfer, the management can make well-founded decisions with the data obtained and the appropriate IT solutions.
Secure transfer of valid data into different ERP systems sets the course for smart and transparent company decisions.
credits to Unsplash Engin Akyurt