It took us less than 3 hours to install our Industrial IoT solution, using our edge devices and Zerynth Cloud, to interconnect 4 machines for 2 different sites, at the Lean Experience Factory facility in Pordenone.

Impressive? Yes.

Difficult: No. Not for Zerynth.

LEF – Lean Experience Factory

The Lean Experience Factory, or LEF for short, is the largest and most integrated model digital company in the world. It started in 2011 as an experiential training center, formed as a joint venture between McKinsey & Company and Confindustria Alto Adriatico, as well as other partners in the area.

We are glad that we had the opportunity to test out new technologies in this ideal environment, since LEF has real machines, perfectly representing the mix of modern and legacy equipment that is found in most manufacturing companies.

Interconnecting new and legacy machinery

Most Italian companies are using dated brownfield machinery that still function perfectly from a production point of view, but are not fully exploited as they are not connected to the IT infrastructure or monitored in real time.

Being able to interconnect cross-gen machinery in covered and non-networked locations and have a homogeneous real-time overview of the production site,which  allows data driven business and production decisions, is among the main advantages of a complete Industry 4.0 adoption.

Lean Experience Factory (LEF), turned to Zerynth for a non-invasive solution. They wanted an industrial-grade design robustness that was safe and quick to set up, and could digitize both the old generation machines and new ones that were equipped with the latest generation PLCs for real time data collection and had an easy and intuitive visualization.

Complete production monitoring – quick and secure solution 

The solution proposed by our team involved a complete and uniform connection of all the machinery, no matter how old or different they were in technology.

In this way, it was possible to interconnect 4 machines at 2 different sites with only three total hours for installation, with the downtime of individual machines being less than 30 minutes.

Thanks to an amperometric clamp, it was possible to monitor the energy consumption of the machinery without making any modification. Industrial IoT edge devices were used to connect the machines: a 4ZeroBox Mobile was applied to the old generation ones, while a 4ZeroBox was used to connect the newer ones equipped with PLCs, in order to extract data and monitor the work cycle.

The signals were read, processed on the edge, and sent to the Zerynth Cloud platform every minute, which allowed visualization of the KPIs on custom dashboards.

Even in areas not covered by a WiFi or Ethernet network, as was the simulated case in part of the “old building” at LEF, it was still possible, via GSM connection, to guarantee the continuous sending of data and subsequent visualization on custom dashboards.

Fast, secure, and effective

As you see, the implementation took a very short time, and efficiently digitized both generations of machinery, allowed a homogeneous view of a typical manufacturing shop floor situation, and enabled integration with third-party business intelligence tools.

LEF, a digital model company – ideal testing ground for your solutions

In the world of IoT, innovation is one of the most important factors for success. So, having a trusted partnership, like the one we have with LEF, and a state-of-the-art place to test out our cutting-edge solutions benefits us immeasurably.

If you would like to learn more about this exciting case study, visit the official page.

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About the Author: Lorenzo Gaudenzi

Lorenzo devotes himself to infinite hobbies and passions, which he constantly ends putting aside, at the first smile of his little Riccardo. A Fun fact: he usually prefers dogs to their owners.

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