Industrial production is in the midst of change. Analog processes are being replaced by fully digitalized workflows. Networking of machines, processes and products is a major topic in this context. Shop systems like Smartstore are paving the way for many innovations. This is shown by Smartstore CEO Pavlos Tsulfaidis in an article for the trade magazine Industrie.de.
Industry 4.0 thrives on digitization and networking of diverse production machines, processes, products and services. The continuous exchange of high-quality data is what makes automated production management possible in the first place. And a crucial building block in an “Industry 4.0” implementation is the integration of customer requirements. So in practical terms: directly from the online shop order into production planning, manufacturing, delivery and remote maintenance.
SmartStore AG has stood for sophisticated and innovative e-commerce solutions for 20 years. The open source shop system Smartstore is the leader among .NET e-commerce systems. We are currently completing the transition to Microsoft.NET Core 5 and Entity Framework Core 5, which means that proven and well-known technologies are already available in the industry.
Proven interfaces in Smartstore enable direct retrieval and thus docking to customer requirements, in both directions manufacturer - customer and over the complete product lifecycle. This eliminates the need for software retooling in the IT landscape of many industrial companies and radically shortens implementation times.
Manufacturing Execution System
A new type of Manufacturing Execution System can then be created that merges customer and production issues and initiates automated production processes.
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An example: If a customer inquiry reaches the Manufacturing Execution System via the Smartstore shop system, the system can determine the possibility of production and calculate its costs via a simulation of the manufacturing machines. One application, for example, is the Sellycon shop for sheet metal processors from Smartstore partner SPI. Thanks to a comprehensive machine and material database, the Sellycon shop can build a “virtual twin” of the production landscape and calculate the quotation for a customer-specific sheet metal part in seconds, including price and delivery time.
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Another example of customer-related data use in the context of Industry 4.0: In production lines, data on process speed, heat development, noise and vibration development can be collected directly. This has already been possible for over 20 years at the individual machine level and is common practice in maintenance and repair. What is new, however, is the return of data on all elements of a production line and the allocation to individual end products assigned to the customer. Think, for example, of high-end audio components, custom-assembled e-bikes or power tools: this way, a valuable “proof of origin”, “proof of quality” or “test record” for each individual product component can be provided fully automatically as an additional benefit to each customer in their Smartstore Shop customer account.
More efficiency and effectiveness, increased customer and user friendliness, and improved operational and strategic production and corporate planning. Industry 4.0 touches all departments in the company and an open and interface-rich shop system like Smartstore is the appropriate e-commerce platform for this.
Learn more at Industrie.de.
The customer in the driver’s seat - on the added value of e-commerce platforms for Industry 4.0 (German Text)