How AIoT Creates Value in the Collaborative Robot Industry
At the 2016 WEF (World Economic Forum), IoT was predicted to become a driving force of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Since then, technological advances such as improved computing power, the emergence of the cloud, big data analytics, new machine learning capabilities, and falling sensor and storage costs have propelled IoT into a ‘game changer’ opening a new era. Going further, AIoT – the intelligent Internet of Things that learns from and processes data to predict outcomes – is expected to fundamentally transform existing business models and create unprecedented value.
AIoT at the Forefront of Digital Transformation
Companies must secure a competitive edge in a fast-changing, increasingly competitive business environment – and digital competitiveness accounts for an ever-larger share of that edge. AIoT is regarded as a technology with the potential to radically change how companies interact with customers, how they work, and how they run their businesses.
Data is at the heart of digital transformation and AIoT. Digital transformation means converting data from physical equipment into a digital environment for real-time monitoring, providing integrated management of equipment operation and data control, digitizing processes through data analytics, and building integrated data services. The AIoT platform carries out these processes and leads digital transformation. It provides digital connections between companies, products, and customers, improves operational efficiency, and enables new business models through the complete digitization of business processes.
IndyCARE: An AIoT Service for Remote Management of Collaborative Robots
In the collaborative robot industry, the relationship between vendor and customer is a close one: even after a cobot is deployed, ongoing interaction is required for operation, maintenance, and staff training. This calls for technology that can make these services more efficient, increase throughput, and raise customer satisfaction. Thingplus presents AIoT technology that monitors robots in real time and manages them remotely as the answer.
IndyCARE streamlines robot management through robot monitoring and remote access, minimizing on-site maintenance visits. It shows the robot’s real-time status and provides a dashboard that visualizes detailed robot data. It also detects every collision that occurs during operation and stores event log files for emergency stop situations along with video from the moment the problem occurred, helping robot administrators identify root causes. In addition, with real-time streaming and the ability to access the robot remotely to review and control its system and programs, detailed issue diagnosis and remote CS support become possible.
With these capabilities, customers can shorten robot maintenance time, maximize production, and increase revenue. Customers who once had to bear travel costs can now reduce operating expenses while securing robot availability at the same time. Customers who adopt IndyCARE can connect anytime, anywhere with an internet connection to view the real-time status and operation data of their collaborative robots, making it easy to grasp work and operation status. The event alarm function also lets them recognize robot issues immediately and file a CS request.
Conventional maintenance followed this process: checking the robot’s abnormal state, filing a CS request, setting up a remote access environment, analyzing the cause, and making an on-site visit if the problem could not be resolved. Much time was spent walking customers through remote access setup, and when customers could not configure remote access, engineers had to visit the site even for minor issues – keeping maintenance efficiency low. With the introduction of the IndyCARE service, the time from CS request to root cause analysis and resolution for a malfunctioning robot has been dramatically reduced.
Creating New Value Through AIoT
AIoT technology has driven the digital transformation of Neuromeka, a company focused on producing and selling collaborative robots, and opened up new opportunities for business expansion. Predictive maintenance, which will be introduced going forward, is a flagship AIoT-based innovation that Neuromeka aims to deliver. The business model of accumulating data through IndyCARE and providing predictive maintenance services on top of it guarantees continuous revenue even after the robot is sold. With a maintenance service made unique by AIoT, Neuromeka expects to prevent business losses and earn its customers’ trust.
Jonghoon Park, CEO of Neuromeka, said, “Entrusting the development of IndyCARE to Daliworks, with its extensive service delivery experience and stable platform, was a good choice. By adopting AIoT, we have secured excellence in our maintenance service, gaining strong momentum to lead the collaborative robot market and new business opportunities.”
by IT World
