The meaning of orchestration is “to organize something, to prepare it in advance without paying attention to other opinions”. In an Industry, this meaning applies in much the same way.
Today, thanks to digitalization, all the necessary conditions exist in industry to interconnect different elements, allowing the many existing industrial operations to feed back by exchanging data, making the need to organize (orchestrate) an industrial plant indispensable.
From the industrial point of view, we refer to the orchestration of a plant to organize, order and coordinate production, integrating all the logical elements (systems), physical (machinery) and people on the same platform.
Orchestration in an industrial plant
As if it were a musical orchestra, where each participant plays a score to the sound of the conductor, the plant’s production depends on an efficient design of the processes and the way they are executed by the employees, who must have all the information available at the moment it is needed, thus increasing efficiency and productivity.
The orchestration of an industrial plant allows to adapt the production in a satisfactory way, either to different delivery times, product customization or increased volumes, where technologies such as Digital Instructions, Augmented Reality or the Internet of Things, play a very important role.
Orchestration through a single platform, together with the use of different technologies present in Industry 4.0, makes it possible to detect possible failures through alerts, correct them automatically, carry out exhaustive stock control or constantly replan loads and workflows.
This orchestrated production planning is possible thanks to the integrity of the various existing systems (MES, CMMS, WMS, etc.), where historical and real data are cross-referenced to optimize production, which results in a quantitative and qualitative leap in productivity and efficiency, leading to better economic results for the company.
The digitization of production is achieved by connecting the employee with the IT and OT systems on the same technological platform, thus providing all the advantages of Industry 4.0.
Type of operations within the orchestration in an industrial plant
The orchestration in an industrial plant makes it possible to improve the following production-related operations:
– Prioritisation and Planning of OFs, OTs and OMs
– Planning by availability of materials
– Traceability of employees and products
– Control of incurred time (man/machine)
– Integration and capture of machine data
– Material consumption per product
– Management and assignment of tasks to employees
– Real-time tracking of operations
– OEE / OLE statistics and analytics
