What is the need for IoT in FA?

Why does the manufacturing industry need IoT in the first place? There are two main processes in the manufacturing industry: the supply chain, which is based on processing data such as orders received, procurement, inventory, and transportation, and the engineering chain, which is based on technical data such as planning, development, design, and manufacturing methods to actually produce goods.

Even if ICT is used for processes related to the supply chain, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and manufacturing execution system (MES), in which data designed by CAD and engineering data are managed by PDM (Product Information Management), if “production itself”, which is the key to the process, cannot be managed digitally as shown in the figure above, neither the “supply chain” nor the “engineering chain” can be managed cross-sectionally.

For example, whenever a new product is developed or a design is changed, the engineering chain’s technical data must be linked to the supply chain in a timely and efficiently. Therefore, by managing equipment and products related to production with digital data, production and sales management can be carried out in a seamless flow.