now commonplace, Larder adds. That said, Dyer
Engineering has exploited Epicor and SFDC data
creatively, along with standard Microsoft tools, with the
indoor tracking solution having added a vital
enhancement to this.
As for the change of job title, although still
encompassing his previous activities, this was a means
by which top management wanted signal its belief in the
importance of a digital future to company management
and staff more widely.
Dyer Engineering had, as it happens, already
commenced its digital journey, the head of digital
innovation explains: “Around the same time as installing
Epicor, we had unknowingly started our journey of digital
transformation through our rst project of cloud
migration, as our on-premise mail server was creaking.
We migrated to Of ce 365, as this was a monthly rental
option as opposed to signi cant investment in replacing
hardware and upgrading software. The latest version of
MS Of ce has opened up new ways of working through
improved collaboration, communication and digital
work ows through Power Apps and Flow.”
Of his Industry 4.0 investigations starting in 2017,
he comments: “Coming from the background of an SME,
there was very little that was tangible that we could take
from conferences and available training, with any use
cases coming for large blue-chip organisations like
Amazon and Nissan, and not translatable to the
challenges and budgets of SMEs.
“It was through a self-developed network that we
came across the Digital Catapult, which was running a
‘Digital Manufacturing’ programme, and it was on this
programme that we were introduced to the ‘Connected
Factories’ competition, funded through Innovate UK and
managed through the Digital Catapult. While Innovate UK
has identi ed the untapped productivity gains that the
UK manufacturing sector could harness through Industry
4.0 adoption in the SME sector, the biggest stumbling
block is the lack of translatable use cases with
demonstrable ROI gures. Generally, nancial directors
wish to see and touch an investment with projectible
returns and are not natural speculators.”
Digital Catapult’s mission is to accelerate early
adoption of advanced digital technologies, with the latter
taking in future networks, arti cial intelligence and
immersive. It has a two-sector focus, manufacturing and
the creative industries. Peter Karney, head of product
innovation at Digital Catapult, explains further: “Our
mission is to help companies understand what these
technologies can do for them, help make manufacturing
industry better through their adoption and also help
those companies that are building the technology that
manufacturing companies use compete more effectively.”
Based in London, regional centres operate in
Brighton, Manchester, the North East (Sunderland) and
LEAD FEATURE LOCATION TRACKING DELIVERS CRITICAL DATA
Ireland. It was from the North East of ce that the call for
participation in a manufacturing future networks
‘Connected Factory’ project came during late 2018. From
some 50 expressions of interest there came 13 solid
proposals, with a single supported project the intended
outcome. In the event, two won backing. Both focused
on a need to track and locate components/assets, with
the Digital Catapult’s task then to align technology with
this need.
On the location tracking technology side, from around
nine proposals, Digital Catapult identi ed a system from
Italian company Think Inside (https://thinkin.io) that
allows indoor tracking of components to within 1 m,
updated every half-second – so near enough real-time.
The technology underpinning this success is something
called a ‘low power wide area network’ (LPWAN),
speci cally CUPPA, which is based on Bluetooth.
Ruggedised tags having a battery life of some two
years accompany workpieces or assets. The other end of
this Bluetooth-like transmitter/receiver set-up comprises
overhead power-over-ethernet-connected receivers.
Signals will penetrate breeze-block walls, but would
struggle with steel, so line-of-sight positioning could be
necessary, not too dif cult in high-roof factories. Each
receiver has an area of coverage, about 100 by 100 m
where line-of-sight operates. Dyer Engineering has about
60 receivers across both its sites and 1,000
transmitters – it doubled the initial 500, due to the
technology’s success. (A rental equivalent to about one
month’s savings is the cost for this and the associated
software cloud platform, so around £10,000.)
Interestingly, another digital technology was to aid the
implementation. Via SAM (Sustainable Advanced
Richard Larder in
front of one of the
shopfl oor displays
incorporating
‘departure board’,
search facility to
locate jobs and VR
graphic with
superimposed
actual locations,
courtesy of the
Think Inside cloud
platform
www.machinery.co.uk | MachineryMagazine | @MachineryTweets | April 2020 11
/thinkin.io)
/www.machinery.co.uk