Article by Assist. Prof. Yod Sukamongkol (Ph.D.)
Director of Energy Conservation Office, Faculty of Engineering, Ramkhamhaeng University
Internet of Things (IoT) is an important technology to revolute our country, Thailand, and industry sector to be Industry 4.0. “Things” could be very simple objects or complex devices. Things do not need to be connected directly to the public Internet, but they must be connectable via a network such as LAN, PAN, WAN, etc. The IoT is the network of physical objects that contain embedded technology to communicate and interact with the external environment. The IoT encompasses hardware, embedded software, connectivity or communications services, and information services associated with the things. An IoT solution is a product combined with a service either a one-to-one or a one-to many relations. Therefore, things can be run as semi-automatic or automatically by themselves.
In the industrial sector, IoT is applied as a large communication network including devices, machines, measuring instruments, and controller units. The ultimate goal of this technology is a generating a real-time communication and monitoring the operating status. Those set of devices can be controlled and work with each other properly which leads to the deduction of waste or operating time with the high efficiency of productivity processes. This implementation will be resulted in the smart factory.
For energy conservation, the energy efficient IoT are necessary. Things may be consisting of simple sensors (e.g. temperature sensor), more complex sensors (e.g. power measuring device), or complex devices (e.g. circuit-breaker or PLC). The IoT application may range from a simple monitoring or a telemetry application as smart meter such as gauging the temperature in a boiler. IoT communications may be required offline, where information is exchanged automatically or on demand, or online allowing for real-time control. These data are collected and analyzed the use of the energy in the factory to desire the effective and appropriate measures for energy conservation. Therefore, the measuring instrument must be accurate, corrected and trusted.
In addition to reacting to and meeting the energy needs of a facility, IoT devices collect data that can have a significant and lasting impact on future usage. This information can then be used to make smart decisions or planning about everything from the stock of raw materials to what parts of the operation processes that should be targeted during renovation efforts. Moreover, condition monitoring saves time from unplanned production outages. Perhaps even more important to operations is the fact that this information can be collected at a granular level, allowing operators to control the power consumption devices to run at the high energy efficiency. For example, a hike in energy use in a specific zone may indicate potential problems with heating/cooling systems or facility utilization or poorly performing equipment which can attribute to unnecessarily high energy expenses. Thus, IoT brings real-time ability to predict energy demand, usage patterns, and ways to optimize energy consumption.
As the operating and physical status of the things, such as temperature, vibration, or efficiency, can be real-time monitored, IoT sensors can alert the workers or owners to potential issues before they become big problems. For example, consider a leaky pipe that, over time, hikes up compressed air usage or, even worse, isn’t noticed until costly of energy used of air compressor occurs. Sensors can pick up on those issues, offering the opportunity to address the issue weeks, if not months before real damage occurs. The same opportunity exists within machinery, where sensors can identify changes in patterns, new vibrations or even a concerning sound, all of which may go completely unnoticed by the naked eye or ear. These issues can often generally in the factory which leads to the increasing energy consumption until the problem is identified and resolved as well as the unnecessary stress of carrying out urgent repairs can be avoided. Different from the pre-IoT era, the traditional energy-management system would collect a sample of energy usage at an interval. The traditional system is good to get energy-consumption data, but it does not help or alerts in case of spikes, curating usage pattern, predicting the seasonal demand, or suggesting appropriate configuration for the real-time reaction.
Next is about the human aspect. Normally, owners may not be able to control the way employees approach or follow your energy conservation measures or policies. Since the factory or warehouse can be monitored on a granular level, employers can incentivize and reward departments that do the most to decrease their wastes. Additionally, the ability to control the working space environment, such as temperature, humidity and illumination, provides the opportunity for maximum human comfort without unnecessary cost inflation. This results in a comfortable and happy employee, and a happy employee is far more productive and more co-operate with any company’s policies than a hot, cold or otherwise miserable one. This can be implied as the indirect energy conservation.
As IoT is a communication network of devices, it also connects to other networks. This exchanged information can be used to manage and plan the time line in the supply chain, e.g. buyer, supplier, deliver and factories. Those smart planning with the sufficient decision can save energy expense for production, inventory, logistics and distribution.
From those above benefits, it can be concluded that IoT is a very useful technology that can transform the traditional factory to the smart factory. The real-time monitoring leads to the smart decisions which will transform the waste from factory’s budget to the best energy efficiency used and this can enable direct energy savings and reduce the energy expense. Therefore, if you run a factory and are looking to cut energy costs, then IoT is worth a closer look. However, the securities of information transfer and communication network must be improved to protect the important data such as planning process, contact transection or financial data. Therefore, the premium protection which against viruses, threats, safeguards your privacy and defends against unwelcome theft must be established in the IoT network.
