How MSMEs Can Leverage the Benefit of Sensors
Published on : Monday 05-09-2022
Awareness about what is possible with the help of sensors and in which manufacturing areas, is a critical challenge, says Darshana Thakkar.
We all human beings have god-gifted natural sensors in the form of eyes to see the objects around us; nose to smell the odour; ears to listen to any sound; tongue to taste edibles; and skin that feels the touch and the environment.
With the technological revolution, we have many artificial sensors that allow us to make our daily life easy. Artificial sensors are hardware components that enable a device to know its location, surroundings, and many more things. These can be either wired or wireless.
Such artificial sensors detect physical motion or any changes in a particular area and convert movement into an electrical signal.
Sensors are electronic devices that identify and monitor any physical attributes of machinery, appliances, devices, and other systems. The sensor senses the parameters such as temperature, pressure, force, speed, distance, torque, acceleration, strain, smoke, gas, etc. It converts them into electrical or optical signals based on the type of sensor.
With the increasing production demand, increasing market competition, and growing shortage of efficient manual labour, sensors play a significant role in the business. Sensors are helping companies reduce product costs, improve product quality, and gain new markets. With the introduction of intelligent sensors, manufacturers capture and communicate data quickly, especially when paired with IoT. As a result, sensors are enabling faster production and improved quality.
Advantages of sensors
i. Accelerate processes and make them more accurate.
ii. Collect process and asset data in real-time.
iii. Monitor processes and assets accurately, reliably, and continuously.
iv. Increase productivity and reduce the total cost of ownership.
v. Lower energy wastage.
With the 4th industrial revolution and penetration of Industry-4 technologies in the manufacturing segment, the importance and requirement of various sensors are increasing daily. This technology is essential for multiple industries, providing vital information on pressure, temperature, velocity, gas, and location to affect various processes or systems profoundly.
Intelligent sensors offer real-time, practical input to managers, developers, and engineers to improve production, performance, and manufacturing versatility.
Sensor manufacturers are constantly working to improve the features of the sensors. That includes precision, reliabilities, response times, robustness, miniaturisation, communications, and efficiencies of the sensors. However, before selecting any sensor for the systems, the company should focus on following sensor parameters to obtain an optimal balance between actual requirements and cost factors.
Features of sensors:
i. Range/span
ii. Errors and accuracy
iii. Nonlinearity
iv. Hysteresis
v. Dead band and saturation
vi. Output impedance
vii. Repeatability
viii. Reliability
There are many industrial applications where sensors can replace dependency on manual labour or reduce human intervention to detect the abnormality – the type of sensors classified by the sensing parameter of the manufacturing system.
1. Temperature sensors
Resistance Temperature Detectors (RTD) or Thermocouples detect temperature changes. A thermometer is the most common temperature sensor to measure the degree of hotness or coldness. These types of sensors are commonly used in the automobile sector, aviation sector, medical sector, computers, cooking appliances, and other daily life applications
2. Pressure sensors
Pressure sensors are electro-mechanical devices that measure the pressure of gases or liquids and provide signals to the inputs of control and display devices. Pressure sensors vary significantly in their technology, design, application suitability, performance, and cost – they are used for control and monitoring purposes.
3. Force sensors
Popularly known as load cells, these are devices that translate applied mechanical force, such as tensile and compressive force, and give digital output. These sensors are used in a wide range of applications such as machinery, consumer products, computer devices, musical instruments, medical devices, automotives, sports, etc.
4. Humidity sensors
These measure moisture volume in the environment and convert them into signals that can be used as input stimuli. These sensors are widely used in many manufacturing industries in the meteorology, medical, automobile, and HVAC industries.
5. Proximity sensors
These are used to detect the presence of a nearby object without any physical contact. Proximity sensors work on the principle of the electromagnetic field. These sensors emit an electromagnetic field and look for changes or return signals. It is instrumental in manufacturing industries to detect the presence of any parts, components, or human beings.
6. Flow sensors
These are electronic or electro-mechanical devices used to measure any fluid's flow. Flow measurement is very vital for process industries.
7. Gas sensors
These are used to sense the presence and properties of various gases. These sensors are crucial to detect harmful gases and monitor gas concentration and environmental information for safety measures.
8. Flaw sensors
Popularly known as detectors, these sensors detect inconsistencies on the surface or the underlying materials. These sensors use ultrasonic, acoustic, or other means to identify defects in the material. They are primarily used for quality control of incoming and in-process materials and components. It is becoming a crucial part of quality control nowadays.
9. Colour sensors
These are a type of photoelectric sensors, which emit light from a transmitter, and then detect the light reflected from a receiver. These sensors help build colour sensing applications in industrial process control, image processing, colour identification, industrial object tracking, medical diagnosis systems and health fitness systems.
10. Light sensors
Also known as electric photo sensors, light sensors convert light energy into electrical energy. Different varieties of light sensors include photo-resistors, photo-diodes, photo-transmitters, etc.
Examples of sensors in Industry 4.0 environment
1. Track entire manufacturing process: Sensors are used to gather data and send it to central cloud computing systems. It helps primary decision-makers track the status and results.
Intelligent sensors have versatile applications in various industries. For example, they are used during medical surgery to measure blood flow. Sensors are used in the design, engineering, and construction to check heat leaks in buildings and industrial plant buildings. In retail, sensors are used for detecting customer position and tracking crowd movement.
2. Link multiple devices: Multiple devices of the plant and machinery are linked and interconnected with the help of various sensors. Intelligent sensors produce data by an interlinked device that allows multiple machines to speak with each other. This intelligent communication helps the manufacturer reduce the cost of repair, maintenance, and replacement parts. Smart sensors give the alarm or message before failure to prevent breakdown and high maintenance costs.
3. Improve production: The data available from the sensors improve plant performance by providing real-time data for proper decision-making. This will aid in improving plant production. With real-time data and accurate plant performance information, unnecessary maintenance and spare part replacement can be avoided. Product quality and reliability increase with the efficient operation of plants and machinery. It also helps to increase delivery performance.
4. Improve the quality of the product: With the help of sensors, any abnormality in the production systems is identified in real-time. An intelligent sensor detects any deviation in the product specification, and suitable corrective actions are taken in time. Sensors also support very well in monitoring the quality of the product more accurately than manual quality assurance.
5. Regulatory compliances: Sensors automatically log data such as energy consumption, temperature, humidity, operating time, maintenance and production line outputs. Intelligence sensors minimise the regulatory enforcement pressure with an accurate and real-time report. Manufacturers can encourage economic benefits, expand services, maximise selection and boost customer loyalty with this technology.
6. Cost reduction with predictive maintenance: With the help of data collected from sensors on equipment, predictive analytics may detect the possible faults and determine how long individual components work at peak efficiency. With this information, factory managers may ensure that new parts are available on-site and can plan the replacement to reduce delays.
7. Identify the root cause of the fault: With the deployment of sensors, reasons for the fault can be identified, and the same can be prevented in the future by suitable corrective and preventive actions. It enables engineers to detect production problems in the early stage until they become a failure point, thereby saving time. For example, wearable assembly lines may transmit images to design engineers through intelligent sensor technologies in real-time.
8. For material management: Intelligent sensors efficiently and accurately count the stock in the warehouse and shop floor efficiently and accurately – sorting materials of different sizes and specifications with ease and accuracy with the help of a sensor.
To sum up
Intelligent sensors offer real-time, practical input to managers, developers, and engineers to improve production, performance, and manufacturing versatility. The critical field applications are safety, construction, automation, air conditioning, industrial process management, aerospace, and more. Function-wise, manufacturing companies can use smart sensors for plants and machinery to increase productivity and reduce cost and maintenance. Smart sensors are also helping manufacturing companies with quality control of the product manufacturing with enhanced accuracy and efficiency. It helps in stock maintenance by providing accurate stock counting and sorting in different industry segments.
Future potential
In the future, more intelligent sensors are expected to come to the market. The required connectivity to these sensors and diagnostic and other linked devices will also be made available via wireless communication. Sensors will provide the device's resources needed to operate on the edge of conventional cloud computing networks. It also allows machines to work remotely, collect data and perform main computing functions before the system is reconnected to a centralised network. Industrial devices with sensors are never far away from the primary servers of the business. Operators can spot anomalies at an early stage by constantly gathering data. It works in wireless networks.
For MSMEs, applying appropriate technology and the cost is still a concern. I strongly recommend sensor manufacturers and all the partners of the automation systems to develop and provide affordable automation solutions to small manufacturing companies. Awareness about what is possible with the help of sensors and in which manufacturing areas, is a critical challenge for the manufacturer. So providing know-how about various technology applications in different industry sectors and other business operations functions should be a focus area for the automation ecosystem partner to target the Indian MSME sector.
Darshana Thakkar is MSME Transformation Specialist and Founder, Transformation – The Strategy Hub. An Electrical Engineer followed by MBA – Operations with rich industry experience, Darshana is an expert in transformation, cost reduction, and utilisation of resources. She has invested 25 years in transforming Micro and Small Enterprises. Her rich experience in resolving pain areas and real-life problems of SMEs helps organisations achieve quick results. Her expertise in managing business operations with limited resources helps clients transform their business practices from person driven to system driven with existing resources.
Darshana has helped many organisations to increase profitability and achieve sustainable growth. She is passionate to support the start-up ecosystem of our country. She is associated with CED, Government of Gujarat as a Business Function Expert in the Entrepreneurship Development program, as faculty for industrial subjects in the Second Generation Program (SGP), and as a start-up mentor and member of the start-up selection committee in the CED incubation centre. She is a certified corporate director registered with IICA and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India. Apart from this, she is an author and publishing her blog, article, and case study related to the MSME industry. Email: [email protected]
