ifm Towards smart factories – thanks to sensors and the cloud

The challenge

In moneo, ifm already has a strong IIoT platform which both increases the availability of equipment through predictive maintenance and optimises process quality and energy consumption.

Hardware limitations, however – for example, when moneo is installed on industry PCs – make it impossible to attach as many sensors as desired to moneo for process data collection. This can lead to multiple instances of moneo running within a factory. As a result, end-customers have no way of monitoring their entire factory with a single software instance, let alone keeping an eye on multiple factories across various locations.

On-premises data processing is also insufficiently efficient. The data collected cannot, for example, be analysed using AI models without further processing.

In order to resolve these challenges, the existing on-premises solution was further developed and migrated to the cloud. There, the program collects and analyses all the sensor data from a customer’s installations – worldwide. The cloud connection also provides scalability and new technical opportunities – like, for example, the use of AI.

The project

Until now, data from the equipment and sensors has been collected in the moneo software solution for each factory. Connecting the software to the cloud, however, enables data from multiple factories to be amalgamated. At the same time, it also makes control easier. Instead of controlling one factory locally, the cloud connection enables multiple factory systems to be controlled and their data collected – in a decentralised, freely configurable manner.

ifm previously offered the following versions:

1. The existing complete solution, locally installed on industry PCs. Data exists exclusively locally.
2. A device solution which links sensors directly with the cloud and uploads data.

The newly developed version is a moneo-based edge gateway. A large number of sensors can be linked to this edge gateway and their data stored locally and/or in the cloud, according to customer preference.

For customers, the gateway is the more economical hardware version if work is to be performed primarily in the cloud. Customers using the moneo complete solution now have the additional option of storing and processing data in the cloud.

inovex supported ifm in building a secure infrastructure to enable data to be exchanged between the cloud and on-premises moneo installations. At the same time, backwards compatibility has been ensured – this feature was made possible by the cloud connection. Customers can decide when to update their local moneo installations, while the cloud version of moneo is constantly being updated. These two moneo versions must remain compatible.

The software created by ifm is a microservices architecture which is being further developed in a distributed manner by multiple teams. inovex supports ifm in the area of device management. This is the “core” of the solution which organises the overview of all the connected sensors.

The solution

The cloud launch linked all the moneo factory installations to the databases in the cloud. This means that companies now have the option to launch overarching data analyses and to network their factories together. A newly developed network view makes it even easier to control the linked sensors and end devices and to maintain an overview of them.

At the same time, customers can use multiple instances to control which data is transferred (or made available) to which instance within the company. ifm thus gives its customers the opportunity to digitalise their processes even further, thereby saving effort, time, and costs.