AI technologies like robotics, computer vision, 3D printing, and advanced analytics have grown into mainstays in manufacturing plants. These smart technologies are evolving and enhancing assembly lines, supply chains, quality control, procurement and a host of other processes across the factory floor.
Big automakers like Audi, Tesla and BMW have made big commitments to realize this planned digital manufacturing initiative. BMW, using stunningly realistic simulation of entire factories and manufacturing processes, has streamlined and optimized production lines in some of its biggest factories. Audi, on the other hand, is building edge clouds with VMware to optimize processes on the shop floor.
Market intelligence shows that integration of AI technologies in the manufacturing market is growing at 45.6% CAGR, and by 2028, it is projected to reach $20.8 billion.
Setbacks
Despite the positive predictions, it’s observed that many manufacturing companies are facing pilot fails in their initiatives to implement and scale Industry 4.0 technologies. According to estimates by the World Economic Forum, over 70% of the companies investing in smart technologies never make it beyond the pilot phase of development.
This is no surprise. There are some clear barriers to harnessing complex technologies like AI, especially for an industry that has chronically stumbled to adopt new technologies.
Making the Edge Smarter
VMware by Broadcom is working at the intersection of traditional and new, helping manufacturers embrace smart technologies with what it calls a “software-defined edge”.
Chris Taylor, product marketing manager, and Alan Renouf, technology product manager, explained the concept while presenting at the Edge Field Day event in California. “The software-defined edge is a distributed digital infrastructure for running workloads across dispersed locations, placed close to where endpoints are producing or consuming data.”
To make Industry 4.0 a successful and sustainable movement across manufacturing, enterprises need to transform operations at the edge such that it resembles the rest of IT.
VMware offers a platform solution – the VMware Edge Compute Stack – that is edge-optimized and designed to help manage edge at scale with limited resources.
Designed addressing the radical constraints at the edge such as scale, lack of stable inbound network connections, edge hardware and protocols, and shortage of onsite personnel, the Edge Compute stack aims to provide a resilient and automated cloud-like compute infrastructure at the edge.
“We’re working with new smart manufacturing and Industry 4.0 technologies, and we’re also helping manufacturers virtualize their manufacturing floor with edge computing.”
The goal, VMware says, is to reduce the number of dedicated function devices and enforce a single operating model to manage workloads at factories.
The VMware Edge Compute Stack is based on VMware ESXi which provides it real-time capabilities to keep applications up-to-date automatically.
The Edge Compute Stack adopts a proven management model called pull mode approach. This ensures that connected devices scan for updates and maintain a desired state autonomously.
“It’s like updating your iPhone,” said Taylor. “Your iPhone sees the updates, pulls it down and installs it when you’re sleeping.”
“It’s using a GitOps and desired state methodology which works really well when you have the scale of edge sites.”
The star of the show, VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator is designed to offer a painless management experience for heterogenous edge applications and infrastructure. Launched last year, the orchestrator makes it simple to deploy disparate edge deployments without IT staff on-site.
Leveraging the pull-based orchestration, it provides zero-touch provisioning ensuring that all security and administrative updates are pulled in timely by the workloads, keeping even the most remote and disconnected sites operational 24/7.
Renouf said, “This is about providing that full stack that everybody needs at the edge. If you have the complete picture of all the data that’s at the edge all the way from the sensors and the applications that are running there and the infrastructure they’re running on, together with the network layer, you can really start to do useful things and optimize for what that edge location does.”
In Aug, VMware released v3.6 of the VMware Edge Compute Stack. The new version comes loaded with additional new features like, a friendly host identifier that allows users to name and identify hosts easily, and the ability to assign static IP addresses to host components instead of setting up DHCP service separately for every site.
To learn more, check out VMware’s presentations from the Edge Field Day event, or head over to VMware’s website for more resources on the Edge Compute Stack.
