5 reasons to embrace Industry 4.0, robotics in medical

NEW YORK CITY—According to the experts, Industry 4.0 no longer is an option.

Leaning at least part way into the evolution now should be seen as a critical business philosophy rather than one that is "nice to have."

And automation and artificial intelligence are not far behind—at once a part of Industry 4.0 and completely autonomous from it—but a necessity for the medical segment nonetheless.

Industry 4.0 can make companies leaner and more efficient with software and improved quality control, but getting the entirety of the working staff to buy in can be a challenge.

Robots today can work in complex environments, but the capital cost can be prohibitive.

The East Coast's largest design and manufacturing event for the medical industry, MD&M East, saw the latest and greatest in micromolding, 3D prototyping and new medical components, as well as the machines that make these processes and parts possible.

The June 12-15 gathering at the Javits Center also brought Justin Brennan, vice president of operations at Philadelphia-based Medical Products Laboratories Inc., and Juan Vega, chief technical officer at New Brunswick, N.J.-based Reliabotics, to discuss these important tangential areas.

Manufacturing has come a long way from the steam power and rudimentary machines of the 18th century.

The third iteration, Industry 3.0 in the mid-20th century, brought manufacturing from pen and pencil to digital records, digitizing the tools of the day.

And Industry 4.0 continues to build on past innovations.

"Industry 4.0 is an evolution and not a revolution," said Brennan, who consults on the benefits of adopting Industry 4.0 in the pharmaceutical space today. "It should be an extension of these digitization efforts."

To "demystify" Industry 4.0 for smaller to mid-sized businesses, Brennan suggests adopting a strategy that leads to trusting data.

"Ignoring 4.0 and being siloed and unconnected to other data is frankly an antiquated culture," he said. "You have to get people on board before you worry about the tools. You pause, you reset, you ask why something did not work."

At the heart of Industry 4.0 is design thinking, according to Brennan.

"It is an iterative, non-linear approach to solving problems," he told an audience of about 100 at the Advanced Manufacturing Stage at the Javits Center. "You test, prototype, ideate and empathize."

The last step can be the most difficult.

Industry 4.0 struggles because people get left behind—whether through a deficiency in training or a lack of clarity for the "end state" or function of the Industry 4.0 avenue that is selected.

It also struggles to take hold because the belief in the concept can falter.

"You have to develop a culture where everyone owns it, builds it, keeps making it better," Brennan said. "Focus on speed and agility, but it is critical to gain and maintain credibility.

"You need to hug the elephant in the room."

With all of the efficiency and ultimate bottom-line savings that can be gleaned from Industry 4.0, data and digitalization "won't win the day," Brennan said.

"People can feel left behind in the design of new systems," he said. "Stay aligned with your goals. Capture the intricacies of the new process and seek input from all members of a value chain—even those people who sometimes wear multiple hats in a day.

"This responsiveness to end user needs builds a deep trust that you (as a leader in the process) will need down the road."

Replacing people with machines is not the thrust of Industry 4.0, either.

"I am not a fan of getting rid of people," Brennan said. "If you start doing that, other employees see that and do not engage. You need to teach and train and give honest assessments of the process."

The cost for Industry 4.0 tools can be circumvented somewhat, as well, using cheaper software.

"Design thinking allows companies to do this without spending millions," he said. "At the end of the day, all of this is very human—that's the whole point.

"Humans still matter."

Not far from where Juan Vega now works at Reliabotics in New Brunswick is Trenton, N.J., where Unimate, the first modern robot, was developed in 1961.

Weighing in at a svelte 3,000 pounds, the robot revolutionized manufacturing the world over.

And Vega—a former U.S. Air Force veteran and self-proclaimed "geek at heart"—said robotics has come a very long way since then.

"There is growing demand for sure," Vega said. "People like what they have seen in dispensing, welding and other applications."

Robotics has taken its modern day cues from the Germany-based Kuka robot in 1973, the first 6-axis, fully electromechanical robot; as well as the UR-5, released by Universal Robots in 2008.

The industry continues to gain knowledge from drone technology, both military and civilian, as robots today "have gotten out of the cages and are working side-by-side with humans," Vega said.

"At the end of the day the robots of the past were isolated, sometimes with enclosed fences," he said. "And workers needed a special set of skills to program them. "On top of that, robots needed a predictable and consistent environment in which to operate—essentially they needed to know where everything was (located) beforehand."

As robotics technology compounds upon itself exponentially, the factory floors are benefiting.

Specifically, Visual SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) technology works on the notion of embedded, or 3D, vision.

The tech does not refer to any specific algorithm or software, rather to the process of determining the position and orientation of a sensor with respect to its surroundings.

"The advantage here is that it is really safe on the factory floor," Vega said. "It can detect things very well with improved navigation, which makes autonomous decisions to avoid things."

And the same tech can benefit fleet manager optimization, he added.

"It determines the most efficient route to take, and the time it takes to go from point A to point B," Vega said. "This information goes to a cloud, and fleet optimization occurs.

"The key is the 3D vision. This gives the robot an updated picture each time, with real-time path-planning and AI."

Outside of manufacturing, robots are used today in the service industry, health care, national defense and construction.

And security robots—known as KnightScope—already have been deployed on trial runs in nearby Times Square.

"Security robots with face recognition get into ethics considerations," Vega said. "It is something that is kind of creepy, but something you are going to see much more of."