How do you start a fourth industrial revolution in Northeast Ohio? Give companies role models, MAGNET says

MENTOR, Ohio — Time is money, and at Alloy Precision Technologies, a company that makes bellows and flexible sealing assemblies, every minute is worth $2.

If robotic arms, CNC machines and a well-designed layout make manufacturing smoother, or if a machine is waiting for a tool to be changed for ten minutes and producing nothing, the time saved or spent ultimately affects the bottom line.

Those are the problems says CEO Michael Canty and his team at Alloy Precisions are trying to solve, and the reason Alloy has been an early adopter of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0. Advanced technology, often involving computers, automation and internet-connected devices, has helped Canty do what he said he’s always liked to do — refine processes and rethink how things are done.

“It’s just fun for me,” Canty said. “That’s what gets my juices flowing.”

And that’s also why MAGNET wants to use his company as a role model for others.

The Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network, also known as MAGNET, started a new program that will bring local manufacturers on tours of businesses like Alloy Precision. The nonprofit has identified companies like Alloy to become manufacturing “lighthouses” that can guide others into using advanced tech.

Lighthouses will show, instead of just telling other companies about Industry 4.0. Mike O’Donnell, vice president of operations at MAGNET, said it’s not just about making things easier or more efficient. Getting Northeast Ohio’s companies to adopt new tech will be crucial to their survival.

“There’s going to be a culling of the herd, where, if you’re not doing these types of things, you’re not going to compete,” O’Donnell said.

MAGNET’s Lighthouse concept

Many companies in Northeast Ohio aren’t adopting advanced tech for a variety of reasons, O’Donnell said. Many don’t understand the practicality or the return on investment.

Whether it’s called Industry 4.0 or smart manufacturing, the term generally refers to anything involving automation, machine learning, interconnectivity or using real-time data.

Not all investments have to be robot arms or new machines, O’Donnell explained. Some of manufacturing’s biggest problems are machine downtime or making extra, unneeded product.

One simple example was a company in town that printed 7-foot by 9-foot sheets of paper. The problem? The older machine didn’t count how many sheets it made, and the best way to count them was by measuring the stack of sheets with a ruler. Extras were often made.

The company attached one sensor to a valve that opened and closed when sheets printed, which let them know exactly how many sheets were being printed. As a bonus, the company realized the printing press was down 40% of the time and could now fix it quicker.

O’Donnell said that fix dramatically changed the company’s profit margins.

“There’s always something that will help,” O’Donnell said. “If you have a problem, you can fix it.”

Companies face three main barriers when adopting new tech, O’Donnell said. They don’t know or don’t believe the upfront investment is worth the long-term savings. They don’t have engineers or people with knowledge on hand to install it. And not all workers like it, fearing that high-tech machines could replace them.

The tours of companies like Alloy Precision will let CEOs see the return on investment up close and put manufacturers face-to-face so they can discuss problems and solutions.

“These lighthouses are an example of the change that’s happening and how it’s happening,” O ‘Donnell said.

What kinds of problems can Industry 4.0 solve?

Walking through Alloy Precision, Canty can point out several changes made in the vein of Industry 4.0 — whether its new machines or the ones that innovation has turned obsolete. The company has used tech to solve a few different problems.

A big part of that is what’s called the industrial internet of things, normally shortened IIoT. In laymen’s terms, the idea is to connect machines to the internet, screens, sensors, tablets and more so that workers get a more accurate picture of how the machines run.

The IIoT helps tell machinists when a tool needs to be changed, when coolant is low, when preventative maintenance is needed and how many parts are being made. Without IIoT, it’s common for companies to not have a handle on these things.

“Most companies, even big ones, have no clue how much their machines are running,” Canty said.

The same way two-shifts get more work done on one machine, IIoT gets more use out of each machine, but without more hours being worked. Canty explained that getting just 60% utilization, instead of 50%, can get the company making 20% more parts.

Measuring the parts and testing them takes up time too, and that’s another thing advanced tech is making easier.

Bellows, a main part of many of Alloy’s products, are like accordions made of metal. The tube-shaped parts have special-made ridges so they can compress and flex when needed. And they’re used in many high-stakes applications, like drilling for natural gas, powerplants, planes and even aircraft carriers. Many of them are thin, even one-third the thickness of a dime, and they need to be exact.

And so, they need to be measured, and that used to be by hand with a caliper, sometimes measuring 50 different parts of the product. But laser optical systems are changing that.

The machines use lasers to quickly measure the part and send that information to a computer, which shows workers a model and tells them if the parts are OK. The machines can’t completely replace calipers, like when measuring the insides of some parts that lasers can’t touch, but they can do a great deal of the work in seconds.

“That’s the future of inspection,” Canty said. “This is where we’re going.”

Also extremely important, especially when the company makes products for the Department of Defense, is cyber security. Canty said the companies paying manufacturers to make their products are very worried about cyber-attacks and getting their intellectual property and designs stolen.

Shoring up cyber defenses can cost anywhere from $100,000 to $300,000, Canty said, buts its crucial. If a company is worried about their IP being stolen, they’ll likely only buy from companies with these defenses.

Getting the lighthouse concept started

MAGNET isn’t just showing off manufacturers with high-tech machines and processes. It also helped add technology to a dozen companies so far.

O’Donnell said the nonprofit decided four years ago that it needed to start offering consulting so it could help companies implement advanced manufacturing. He said MAGNET needed to go through the process with lighthouse companies so that the nonprofit could also speak from experience.

After doing some learning themselves, they reached out to companies that were “willing to take the leap” with them.

MAGNET started helping companies with “lighthouse” projects in early 2020, and now has 12 that will be ready for tours. O’Donnell said the lighthouse tours will start in July and run at least through 2023.

O’Donnell said they’ll keep taking on projects, but MAGNET doesn’t have the capacity to help every manufacturer in the region. The goal is to create early adopters and role models through examples.

The ultimate goal is for Industry 4.0 to be used throughout MAGNET’s 23-county region, O’Donnell said.

To contact MAGNET for more information on Lighthouse tours, call 216.543.1222 or email at info@manufacturingsuccess.org.