Manufacturing and Data Conundrum

Manufacturers have used data to measure production since at least 3000 BC, when the oldest discovered cuneiform tablets were marked with pictographic words and numbers. All it took was a reed or stick to mark damp clay, and the number of sheep, bags of grain or output of spears was readable, but only to the literate overseer.

Similarly, today’s industrial data, displayed on computer screens, is understandable and useful only to the trained overseer. But there is far more of it, and it is available instantly, so that as issues arise process adjustments can be made quickly.

In today’s ideal digitally networked production environment, complex data can be used far more easily than ever to improve product quality, boost throughput, improve shop floor reliability, enhance safety and predict maintenance requirements, eliminating unscheduled downtime.

That is the ideal, at any rate. In the past decade, as more manufacturers have implemented a broader array of digital controls—in the process linking together production machinery that used to operate independently—it has become an appealing vision of what making things might actually become everywhere.