Plant floor error-proofing for Industry 4.0

An often overlooked facet of these revolutionary new manufacturing facilities is the influence of human factors.

Industry 4.0 facilities are using an unprecedented amount of automation and software to create more efficient manufacturing processes. But what is often forgotten is that these automated devices and software are working in a human-to-machine interface, and are designed not to eliminate a human, but to make a human’s job easier by taking on mundane or heavily computational tasks that could be challenging for a human operator.

With humans still playing a critical part in the Industry 4.0 manufacturing facility, the potential for human error must still be accounted for. Human errors still account for a large amount of unplanned downtime and recall in manufacturing. Many of these human errors occur on the plant floor, and many MES-style software solutions that manage processes at the line level are ill-equipped to also perform plant floor error-proofing.

For more information on human errors and the need for plant floor error proofing, please be sure to review our educational seminar on the topic. This seminar provides more detail regarding some of the potential challenges that can occur at the plant floor level, and possible solutions to catch these errors at the time they happen, not at the end of a line or worse yet after a faulty component leaves the factory.

Atlas Copco is able to address many of these human errors through Industry 4.0 software solutions that provide improved operator guidance to lower defects, rework solutions to improve productivity, and data collection for improved traceability and quality assurance.

Learn more about our Plant Floor Error-Proofing solutions.

Questions? Contact Atlas Copco today to learn more or schedule a product demonstration.