The Development and Implementation of M2M (Machine-to-Machine) Communication in the Manufacturing Industry Harvard Case Solution & Analysis

The Development and Implementation of M2M (Machine-to-Machine) Communication in the Manufacturing Industry Case Study Analysis

CHAPTER 3 - RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research Design:

The study will employ a single method research approach in data gathering and analysis. The study will use a qualitative research technique. According to Creswell & Clark (2017), qualitative research is an exploratory study that used when a researcher wants to understand the underlying reasons, motions, and even opinions on a subject. The qualitative study will entail doing a review of the literature on the significance of M2M technology in the manufacturing industry. The qualitative study will help in finding out what other past studies have identified in relation to the significance of M2M technology in enhancing efficiency of operation in manufacturing industry, challenges associated with implementation of M2M technology, some of the recommendations that can ease the implementation process of M2M technology and note some of the advantages that will be garnered by transforming M Tool from a traditional firm to a smart factory.

The research is beneficial by recommending the best way in which M Tool can eliminate the inaccurate troubleshooting and attain product specification thus improve their quality and, subsequently, customer satisfaction. This would significantly done considering the implementation, standards, and architecture of the machine to machine communication systems.  Therefore, the analysis of the M2M system would provide an insight for better understanding, functionality and use of M2M systems in the manufacturing industry.

Data Collection - Qualitative Approach

The gathering of data will be from different engineering and technology databases, in which 50 percent will be from the school’s library sources. To come up with the references, the researcher will devise the eligibility criteria. Only scholarly research papers will be part of pieces of literature in this study, and they must be not older than ten years old. Only full articles only will be considered for inclusion. Material obtained from the web will be considered supplemental. After all the articles considered suitable for selection, the researcher will employ documentation and interpretation techniques in analyzing and presentation of findings in order to determine the possible ways to consider as a way to bring significant improvement in the business operations of M tool in the manufacturing industry.

Data Analysis

In order to represent the findings of the research; the data will be analyzed based on the studies conducted so far. This would mainly include the in-depth qualitative analysis of the literature review. This would provide the issues, challenges, and any other related factors that influence the implementation and effect of M2M communication systems in the Industry 4.0 and possible consequences to reach the point of recommendation.

CHAPTER 4 – RESULTS

4.1 Findings of the study:

For M2M to achieve the management of cities, a concept that uses a generalization of information and technologies in daily life. Literature research found out that Machine to machine communications and cloud computing are the most common technologies that are part of the integration of information (Martigne, 2015). According to Saleem et al. (2015), in the era where a wireless connection is every day and expanding that traditional mobile technologies, wireless machine to machine communications is expected by the researcher to enable automation and actuators of information and quickly. M2M communication is a communication strategy that is using mobile devices that incorporates sensors and actuators that make communication through networks such as the internet and minimal human intervention (Saleem et al., 2015). Besides, machine to machine communication is a standard way of generalizing third party generation partnership projects that is capable of supporting a wide range of applications to design a smart city.

According to Weyrich, Schmidt & Gotsis (2015), wireless M2M communication is an acceptable practice within the production and manufacturing industry. According to Alexiou & Gotsis (2015, p. 173), “M2M applications use the general packet radio service (GPRS) net-work infrastructure and specific services such as the short message service (SMS). This is a manageable, cost-efficient way to address M2M deployment, as long as the number of devices remains relatively small”. However, according to Baroli and et al., (2015), companies need to plan ahead for security if using wireless technology.

The research through literature review found that M2M technology has turned out to be among the most indispensable tools for every manufacturing firm as company’s foster efficiency while at the same time lowering costs (Zhou et al., 2017). Besides, cases where machines cannot rectify a defect on their own, M2M technology has the capability of communicating the information to other devices making corrections uncomplicated for the employees to note where a problem emerges from and therefore resolve the issue quickly, thus making manufacturing faster. Machine to Machine technologies facilitates manufacturing firms a means for tracking product shipments, the conditions for storage, and even inventory. Machines have the capability of using the data collected or generated, and the director also coordinates other devices while passing instructions and specifications to workers, which results a more restructured and responsive environment that facilitates opportunities for eliminating errors and minimizing manufacturing costs.

Despite the huge potential of the Industry 4.0 in the process of production; there is a number of factors, which hinder the successful implementation which mainly includes:

• Reliability concerns associated with the M2M communication, which is known to represent the inability to reach the desired levels of stability and performance. This is mainly predicted by the implementers of the Industry 4.0.
• Concerns associated with the communication technological approaches and information security.
• Lack of efficient skills represented by the engineers of an organization, in order to implement Industry 4.0.
• Complete implementation of industry 4.0 technology is known to be result in massive lay-offs in the industrial sector resulting in the job loss of a wide-range of less educated workers at the organization.

However, such concerns regarding the implementation of Industry 4.0 i.e. M2M communication approach exists, but it has been expected that with the increase in the patent application the process of implementation is considered to demonstrate both growth and improvement resulting in highly automation and smart process of production i.e. improving the culture and business operations in the manufacturing industry. (Karabegović, 2020)

The successful implementation of Industry 4.0 i.e. M2M technology is known to provide the organization with the development of capabilities and enabling the process of decision making and smart operations to turn the manufacturing resources like workers, tools, materials and machines into smart manufacturing objects. This provides the organization with the capability of independent interaction and interoperation with the interference of humans. (Zhong, 2013) The implementation of M2M technology has also resulted in the possible production using real time visualization through use of the abilities of the smart manufacturing objects in a smart factory.  (Zhong R. Y., 2017)

Furthermore, in regards to the issues in the successful implementation of the M2M approach in the production process, for the provision of greater certainty so that the manufacturing industry develop the capability to reap the potential benefits of M2M, a series of stages has been recommended by Hitachi for the implementation i.e. initial stage – for the establishment of M2M mechanism, entrenchment stage secure the benefits of M2M, and development stage – to build the benefits for the supplies of machinery in the manufacturing industry followed by a long-life and creation of added value in the production process. (Junichi Sato, 2014)

On the other hand, despite the determination of the successful implementation steps to implement M2M approach to turn a manufacturing facility into a smart manufacturing facility, power consumption is considered as one of the technical issues by the use of smart devices which might increase the utilization of resources. Therefore, there seems to be a requirement to address the gaps in the infrastructure for the successful implementation, which includes the network of connected devices and accessing it for control and communication, cloud-based computing for real-time decision making process and other concepts and related approaches in regards to the implementation of M2M technological approaches in the manufacturing industry. (Medhi, 2019)

Additionally, based on the features and the characteristics of the smart factory which considers CPSs communication over the use of internet of things and assisting individuals and machines to execute their task involves sub-processes for a smart-factory, which are as follows:

• M2M communication through Internet of Things.
• Consistent communication to the cloud from the sensors.
• Integration of innovative drive technological approaches and robotics.
• For tracking of parts and intelligent products as the basis of RFID – Radio Frequency Identification. (Lidong Wanga, 2016)

Therefore, the development of the OPC UA gateway has provided an assistance to the industrial organizations for the integration of the concept of Industry 4.0 vision. This significantly allows the organization to remote access the information about the plant which resulted in achievement of vertical integration. This integration of the system was known to bring reduction in the TCO – total cost of ownership in the manufacturing industry. Additionally, low-cost automation processes are known for promoting the profitable architectures and development of new approaches to bring significant improvement in the production efficiency and flexibility of the operations in the industrial plants in the oil and gas industry. (Marcelo V.García, 2017)

Thus, the number of organization as well as industries focusing on the development and the implementation of M2M strategic approach has been readily increasing, representing more than 80 percent of the organizations’ involvement. (Jaap Bloem, 2014)

Table 1: Percentage of organizations involved in M2M communication approach

4.2 Summary

M2M communication poses different challenges to the organization both in the development and implementation in the manufacturing industry. But, the outcome of the successful implementation is known to bring an improvement in the business operations, data transmission, accuracy, reliability, flexibility, and reduction in the cost.

CHAPTER 5 – SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

The key phenomenon of human-to-human to human-to-machine communication has significantly been enhancing the use of internet in regards to the information infrastructure. (Chen, 2012) The M2M communication has a rich history in the almost every industry across the world and a large number of technological approaches and standards has provided a wide range of functionality across different industries. The rationale behind the development and implementation of the M2M technology is primarily based on two core reasons i.e. the value of a network machine is more as compared to the isolated one and the interconnection of multiple machines are known to result in the generation of more autonomous and intelligent applications. (Min Chen, 2012)

The automation of manufacturing processes and industrial process have been quite easier to be linked through the introduction of wearable computers, smartphones, applications, and operational processes. This, thus, provides organizations and industries with numerous opportunities and efficient use of IoTs. This means that the real world of manufacturing is continuously converging to a world of digital manufacturing that is primarily aimed to enable the organizations to plan and project the lifecycle of the products as well as the the production facilities to digital use.

The use of such technology provides the organizations with an improved profit generation in three different ways i.e. cost reduction as an outcome of predictive maintenance, improved intelligence and speed by means of machine to machine communication and improvement in the human-to-machine interaction. This is mainly followed by a combination of operational technology and information technology. Thus, such kind of M2M communication has been beneficial not only to be used in the manufacturing industry referred to as smart factory but also in the high-tech sectors, consumer goods and food industry. (Jaap Bloem, 2014)

Considering the fact that every organization is looking forward to implement the digital transformation i.e. M2M communication approach in their business models to improve the business operations, the successful implementation of the M2M approach by M tool mainly requires the need to consider end-to-end link which is important for accelerating the digital change in the organization. The connectivity between machines imposes a demand for knowledge and attention from different areas that ranges from work processes, standardization, infrastructure, connectivity, risk management to marketing and human resource management. Machine to Machine connected devices spot warning signs and maintenance tasks to take care of the state of machines, thus lengthening their efficiency and longevity.

The current architecture and standards of the M2M systems are mainly focused on issues related to security and communication. Machine to Machine technology incorporates industrial instrumentation, which makes a sensor or a meter able to communicate the data which records to application software. Similarly, advanced analytics can be used for building the smart and meaningful solutions to develop an uninterrupted connection between the services, software, hardware to data and digital content. This would significantly result in making the data more accessible to the users, through the deployment of new Human-Machine Interfaces.

Whereas, the interface of machine to machine communication provides access to monitor, control, and manage the machines or remote equipment. This predicts the future of machine technology which would result in the loss of jobs i.e. resulting in the unemployment rates across all industries around the world. In contradiction, it has been reported that an increased introduction of femtocells in M2M communication is known to bring improvement in the accessibility and flexibility of the business operations. (Sackey Eric, 2019)

Due to the availability of a large number of terminals in the M2M communications that allows to have an access the network, which brings significant challenges to the networks based on the potential overloads and signaling congestions. (H.Chao, 2015) A high populated area while attempting to access the random access network using machine to machine devices and other devices. (Sackey Eric, 2019) The congestion is created, which mainly requires the deployment of femtocells to bring significant improvement in the accessibility. Therefore, monitoring makes the data uncomplicated for the employees to note where a problem emerges from and thus resolving that problem quickly, thus making manufacturing faster and more “efficient, flexible, and sustainable through communication and intelligence.

However, the workforce is not going to be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence, but changes the type of careers the workforce will have in the future. For successful implementation of the machine to machine communication; there are four common stages, which are considered in each application of M2M as reported by Hitachi. Thus, the M tool is recommended to focus on the development of a series of plan for the implementation of M2M communication approach within the organization. This would bring a significant reduction in the inaccurate management of data and reduction in the troubleshooting followed by reduction in maintenance cost. Because Machine to Machine employs advanced sensors and chips when monitoring the general performance of each machine within a factory and troubleshoots problems that arise from monitoring.

Considering the complexity and incredibly large supply chains; there is a number of M2M technological approaches that can be used by M Tool to bring an improvement in the operational services in the manufacturing industry, such as: the use of RFID systems, automatic systems for stock management, GPS tracking, and smart barcode scanners assisting in keeping the supply chain connected to its core areas. Such devices would primarily serve as the gateway between the computing power of the phone and a wrist-mounted sensor, to bring an improvement in the communication among the machines.

The implementation of the M2M communication in the organization would significantly provide the organization with the capability to bring reduction in its cost by minimizing the use of equipment. Due to the reason that the smart manufacturing system is followed by a set of three dimensions i.e. product, production system and business, allowing the organization to enable an advanced control and optimal decision of the business operations, both at the manufacturing plant and the organization.

In small series manufacturing, the tools of products that any manufacturing facility has, requires adjustment to specific products and the process that is recommended to the organization in order to follow the changes to avoid or bring a significant reduction in the loss incurrence, which might result from the time gaps of non-production process. The new automation paradigm of decentralized manufacturing tends to feature interoperable interactions and ubiquitous communication among the machines. M2M technology has the capability of communicating the information to other devices, making corrections uncomplicated for the employees to note where the problem emerges from and therefore resolving the issue quickly thus making the manufacturing process faster.

Machines have the capability of using the data collected or generated, and the director also coordinates other devices while passing instructions and specifications to the workers,which results in a more restructured and responsive environment that facilitates opportunities for eliminating the errors and minimizing the manufacturing costs. Therefore, there seems to be a requirement to address the gaps in the infrastructure for the successful implementation, which includes the network of connected devices and accessing it for control and communication, cloud-based computing for real-time decision making process and other concepts and related approaches in regards to the implementation of M2M technological approaches in the manufacturing industry.

Conclusively, the development and implementation of M2M technologies has been revolutionizing with the change in era and rapid changes in the advancement of technological use. However, in the manufacturing industry; the use of technology has been improving but there are a number of challenges in the implementation with respect to the needs and demands of the organization in order to proceed with the business operations in an efficient manner. This has been known to bring an improvement in the information exchange, data integration, operational flexibility, accountability and productivity in the lifecycle of product. This is primarily due to the reason that machine to machine communication promises an assistance in connectivity, automation and improvement in the lives of private organizations, businesses and governments........................................

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