What is Smart Factory
What if we were to define the concept of “Smart Factory”?
First and foremost, we need to keep in mind the bigger picture that lead companies to embrace Industry 4.0 . Secondly, the actual definition: Smart Factory is an integrated system of automated instruments and productive processes that optimizes the logistics of raw materials and final products within an industrial plant.
Smart factory: Solutions and Technologies
Turning a production facility into a Smart Factory allows you to minimize risks and reduce the margin of error to zero. Moreover, it makes it possible to adapt quickly and smoothly to customers' changing needs, improving productive efficiency sharply.
Smart factory 4.0, thanks to its innovative systems, efficiently organizes and optimizes the Supply Chain. What are these systems? And how do they work?
A smart factory requires robots and machines able to automate the productive process: robotic labelers, pallet control systems, laser guided vehicles, automated high-density warehouses. Last but not least, the brain that harmoniously coordinates logistic flow and systems is the greatest revolution introduced by Factory 4.0.
The brain of the Smart Factory: the software by E80 Group
E80 Group created SM.I.LE80, a software platform that allows companies to oversee all logistic operations, guaranteeing full product traceability and total interconnection of different systems. This cutting-edge program runs the productive process flawlessly: reception of raw materials, storing and shipping final products.
The software platform is adapted to meet the needs of any company by implementing different configurations.
What are the advantages of smart factories?
Thanks to coordination between intralogistics flows and hardware systems, SM.I.LE80 by E80 integrates manual and automatic operations and communicates with the factory's management software (ERP) to control the real-time situation of the plant.
Besides, the software is compatible with productive lines and machinery developed by E80 Group: robotic labelers, pallet machines, high-speed robotic stretch wrappers, automated labelers, and Laser Guided Vehicles LGV.
For this reason, the product is traceable and supply chain is efficient and safe throughout.
Smart Factory forward Industry 4.0: Pedrignano's example
The implementation of automated high-density warehouses in Barilla's plant of Pedrignano in Parma is a great success story of software efficiency and smart factory.
The multinational had to automate the storage and get rid of pallets because of Barilla's policies for food storage that forbid the use of wood. E80 Group answered the call implementing a state-of-the-art solution that gets beyond Industry 4.0.
Interview with Alessandro Spadini - Barilla on Vimeo from E80 Group.