As a leading manufacturer of bathroom pods in the UK, Connex Offsite were keen to explore how smart technologies and Industry 4.0 could improve their operations, products and services. They attended a workshop about the Smart Manufacturing Data Hub and provided a tour of their Newry based facilities to explore how shop floor data capture and visualisation could inform decision making. 

The Smart Manufacturing Data Hub provided Connex Offsite with a IoT sensor solution that would allow them to better understand machine utilisation trends and product costing. The SMDH Power Sensor clamps were installed on the input power 3 phase cabling, enabling an unintrusive installation with zero disruption to operations. The sensors were connected to the company’s existing Wi-Fi infrastructure and configured during assembly, so that data could be stored and analysed on the SMDH cloud platform. 

Data analysis was carried out by SMDH Data Science team, who identified 4 groupings namely, ‘off’, ‘idling’, ‘low intensity’, ’high intensity’. The power monitoring solution allowed Connex Offsite to establish a baseline of power usages on their CNC machine and identify trends and correlations between production operations and energy usage. 
The results were displayed on a user-friendly dashboard and presented to the Connex Offsite team with guidance on how different features could help to identify key performance indicators from the factory floor. 

A calendar control has been integrated into the dashboard, enabling users to filter data by selecting a specific date or date range. Additionally, the dashboard detects missing data points, helping Connex quickly identify potential sensor disconnections. The dashboard also provides an estimate of the machine’s energy costs over a given period. kWh consumption is calculated during the analysis, and in QuickSight an adjustable pricing variable allows SMEs to customize the cost per kWh.

Figure 1. Power utilisation dashboard for Connex

The implementation of the IoT power monitoring sensors has provided Connex Offsite with valuable insights into their manufacturing operations, driving efficiency and cost savings. The project has enabled them to track machine utilisation, offering crucial data for optimising power consumption and improving operational efficiency.

The cloud-based dashboard allows Connex Offsite to monitor machine utilisation by shift, day, or week, helping identify trends and opportunities to increase productivity. In addition to tracking productivity, the dashboard provides insights into the machine’s energy consumption, helping Connex Offsite estimate operational costs across different times of the day, week, month, and year.

By leveraging the dashboard, Connex Offsite can approximate the cost of running the machine based on their time-of-use (ToU) tariff and conduct further analysis to calculate the energy required to manufacture each product.

The introduction of IoT sensor technology has had a significant positive impact on Connex Offsite, empowering them to make data-driven decisions. As a result, they are now exploring how IoT sensors can be applied across their operations within the parent group, Re-Gen, and plan to expand their use of this technology in the future.