Digitalization
In recent years, significant growth in Industry 4.0 digitalization has had a major impact on the manufacturing sector.
The shift from traditional, paper-based methods to more streamlined digital solutions is helping all kinds of manufacturers, from textiles and food to pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals, boost their productivity, reduce costs and thus, become more operationally efficient.
As digital transformation evolves, the number of new tools and solutions available to manufacturers also continues to grow, offering them a wide range of competitive advantages. Three of the most important tools coming to the fore are artificial intelligence, extended reality and automation, all of which are helping meet tomorrow’s challenges today.
Digital Transformation solutions
Digital transformation is the ultimate consequence of digitalization. Just as digitalization stems from digitization, so does digital transformation stem from digitalization.The complete transformation of an industry through digitalization is the perfect example of digital transformation.
OAKS believe that digital transformation services are not just about changing technology platforms or bringing in new tools. It is more about leveraging the right blend of technology solutions that will optimize your processes by gradually integrating legacy systems and processes into the modern system.
Our extensive service spectrum includes:
Cloud Migration &Integration:
Cloud Integration /data integration allows you to seamlessly connect your applications and back-end systems together, allowing the flow of data to various applications. Not only does this reduce the amount of manual data errors andautomate complex workflows and reduce or eliminate redundant data that could lead to operational errors. Consequently, cloud integration can improve operational efficiency, flexibility and scalability, as well as reduce operational costs.When Merchants look at their data and flows strategically, data integration can be used in a myriad of strategic ways to build an exceptional customer experience. This includes having the ability to modify or transform your data while in transit between systems.
Cloud/data migration services involve the process of moving data and/or IT processes from heterogeneous applications, systems, machines, staff, and even customers to a cloud-computing environment. The idea is to host applications and data in the most effective IT environment possible, based on factors such as availability, security, agility, cost, performance, and scalability; and that is possible only with effective data migration services. Whether it is moving from on-premises or legacy infrastructure to the cloud, cloud providers not only provide data migration services and the computing infrastructure but also offer a variety of applications and services for continuous integration, data analytics, AI, and more. Cloud-neutral products can easily integrate with most leading cloud-based solutions.
Hybrid Cloud:
Hybrid cloud is a solution that combines a private cloud with one or more public cloud services, allowing data to move seamlessly between the environments. with proprietary software enabling communication between each distinct service. That interconnectivity is made possible first through data virtualization, then through connective tools and protocols like application programming interfaces (APIs), virtual private networks (VPNs), and/or wide area networks (WANs).
A hybrid cloud strategy provides businesses with greater flexibility by moving workloads between cloud solutions as needs and costs fluctuate.
Cloud Computing:
Cloud computing describes the hosting and delivery of information and on-demand computing resources on the Internet using a remote network of servers. The alternative is storing, managing or processing data on a local server or personal computer. Many technology applications that gained popularity as installed software are now preferred as cloud applications to the ease of use and reduced maintenance.
Benefits of Cloud Computing
- Scalability – It can dynamically increase or decrease based on the online retailers requirements.
- Data Security- Information is stored on a remote server; if a personal computer or internal network fails, no information is lost.
- Accessibility – Remotely storing a catalog of products or services means that potential customers can access the ecommerce site from virtually anywhere in the world.
- Pay-Per-Use – Computing resources are measured at a granular level, end users only pay for the resources they require.
Cloud Computing Service Categories
In addition to private, public and hybrid cloud web hosting environments that host and store your data, clouds are also separated into service categories used for different types of computing. There are three basic service categories SaaS, PaaS and IaaS:
- Software as a Service (SaaS):
software that’s available via a third-party over the internet.
The most popular among online retailers, allows merchants to run direct sales applications such as BigCommerce, Google Apps, Salesforce, Dropbox, MailChimp, ZenDesk, DocuSign, Slack, Hubspot.shopping carts in the cloud allows the customers to make a purchase without download or install programs.
- Platform as a Service (PaaS): hardware and software tools available over the internet. PaaS is which runs applications like Java.
AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Heroku, Windows Azure (mostly used as PaaS), Force.com, OpenShift, Apache Stratos, Magento Commerce Cloud are examples of PaaS.
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS):
cloud-based services, pay-as-you-go for services such as storage, networking, and virtualization.
AWS EC2, Rackspace, Google Compute Engine (GCE), Digital Ocean, Magento 1 Enterprise Edition are examples of IaaS.
Primarily focuses on providing datacenter infrastructure on-demand. Examples include Amazon Web Services used by Netflix to house their database of movie and television offerings.
IIoT Platforms:
The industrial internet of things (IIoT) refers to the extension and use of the internet of things (IoT) in industrial sectors and applications. … Connecting industrial equipment (e.g. PLC, robots, actuators, sensors) to the cloud via 4G/cellular, Wi-Fi or ethernet connections.- and sharing real-time data – can drastically impact the efficiency, production and uptime and helps to develop next generation machines.
IoT helps in industrial automation to create systems that are effective, affordable and flexible to customer needs.
A few benefits of a well designed, developed and rolled out IIoT platform:
- Monitor and Manage the Facility
- Monitor and Improve Equipment efficiency.
- Track assets and products.
- Remote troubleshooting.
- Enhanced cyber security.
- Improve collaboration between teams.
The essentials of an Industrial IoT solution
Typically IIoT solutions include:
- Industrial ‘things’– Internet-enabled devices like PLCs, IPCs, Human Machine Interfaces (HMI), robots, vision cameras and sensors.
- Connectivity– Connecting ’things’ to the internet via 4G/cellular, Wi-Fi or ethernet connections.
- Data– Data, and how it is collected, stored and processed using edge devices, is central to the value of IIoT.
- A cloud platform– Key to IIoT is a centralised and secure cloud platform for hosting the data and enabling remote services
- Analytics dashboard– For analysing data and monitoring machines.
- Intelligence and action– The collected data must be analysed by either humans or smart functions to send out alarms or triggers to any other system.
Practical IIoT applications for daily Use:
- Remotely solve PLC /robot problems if a custom-built machine is down.
- Publish new functionalities on the HMI screen for customers abroad.
- Predict machine maintenance and analyse upfront which part needs to be replaced.
- Analyse and optimize industrial robot actions.
- Manage data from multiple buildings for central monitoring in your BMS system.
IoT Architecture Services Provided by OAKS
- Plug-in architecture
- Micro services based platform
- Rule-based engine
- Command support
- Certificate-based authentication
- Supports Azure, AWS, IBM Bluemix, GE Predix, others