While Industry 4.0 is changing people's current and future way of working, Intel is moving to fully deploy its technologies in every IoT node to make entire IoT system boast the best computing performance and facilitate wide applications of leading new technologies such as AI, smart Internet, and built-in information security mechanisms into IIoT (industrial IoT) applications, according to Xie Qingshan, Intel's China IoT marketing manager.
Xie told Digitimes in a recent interview that Industry 4.0 or the fourth industrial revolution mainly refers to digital transformation of manufacturing, commercial and social fields, integrating physical, digital and biological worlds. In the process, bolstered by the popularity of high performance computing chips, IIoT can monitor the whole production process, from any equipment on production lines to every production material in warehouses.
Xie continued that automated robots, AI, cloud computing, sensors and data analysis can be adopted to help smart manufacturing plants connect all the production and logistics processes in an organic way to achieve smart, efficient and sustainable manufacturing operations.
Nevertheless, how to apply the new technologies to existing systems requires total solutions based on top-layer designs, instead of only installing some new machines or upgrading production lines, Xie said, stressing that new-generation manufacturers must, in particular, think about how to build higher-efficiency IIoT communication infrastructures to facilitate real-time collection, transmission, analysis and application of diverse data.
Manufacturers are now aware that data will play a dominant role in the decision-making process, and all smart-plant employees have to think logically like a data scientist. Also, company managers should consider how to turn data into a core management element, instead of just handing collected data over to data scientists and making decisions based on their research conclusions, Xie indicated.
Intel IIoT product division will focus on developing high-performance edge computing hardware products, highly-integrated industrial software integration platforms, and machine vision and AI applications development platforms, suitable industrial uses, Xie concluded.