By Mark Sawyer, EPCC. This talk was presented at the EPCC-CeeD event 'Advanced technologies for Industry 4.0' in September 2018.

1. COLLABORATION
SUCCESS STORIES
Advanced Technologies for Industry 4.0
Advanced Technologies for Industry 4.0

2. Why collaborate ?
Advanced Technologies for Industry 4.0
Image copyright Getty Images, Raylipscombe

3. Four examples of success
Advanced Technologies for Industry 4.0

4. Example 1: Industrial Safety
Challenge: Scale up of business
Gexcon: Software owner of simulation package to design
scheme for locating gas detectors in an industrial plant.
Complex problem involving multiple scenarios of wind
speed and direction, plant layout etc. Needs a lot of
computing power. Neither Gexcon nor customers can afford
capital investment in hardware.
Advanced Technologies for Industry 4.0

5. Industrial Safety 2
Solution: New business model to SaaS
Advanced Technologies for Industry 4.0
Change to new Software as a
Service (SaaS) model from a
licence-based model. Gexcon
software was adapted to run on
third-party HPC system. EPCC
designed software to provide
interface between Gexcon software
and HPC system. UK consultancy
Micropack provided test data.

6. Industrial Safety 3
Benefits:
SaaS running on the HPC system allows designers to
evaluate layouts of sensors in hours rather than days. This
cuts the cost of design dramatically.
Gexcon can scale up their business using elastic capacity
of the HPC cloud. Users get software and computing cycles
on pay-per-use basis, lowering entry cost. The cost savings
of one or more detectors per sector of the detection system
can quickly add up to figures in excess of €100,000.
Advanced Technologies for Industry 4.0

7. Example 2: Construction
Designing and testing a new structural product is an
extremely costly process. A cost-effective computer
simulation process would help to solve this problem.
Advanced Technologies for Industry 4.0
Challenge: Design new
construction product to build
homes faster, with less waste and
less energy, in line with European
Union housing guidelines.

8. Construction 2
Solution: Use third party HPC provider for computing
resource.
Collaboration between University engineering department
and HPC centre resulted in a CAD workflow that sent the
designs to a HPC system running a standard structural
analysis suite of software. Using HPC allowed this workflow
to be run quickly.
Advanced Technologies for Industry 4.0

9. Construction 3
Benefits:
Advanced Technologies for Industry 4.0
By using HPC system company
was able to reduce the weight of
the beams. This results in savings
in materials and transportation
costs. For just one product the
turnover increased by €40k PA.

10. Example 3: Renewable Energy
Databases of wind speed tend to be inaccurate for use in
urban areas. Local variations need to be measured or
modelled. Measurement is very expensive, so a cost-
effective way to model has a lot of potential.
Advanced Technologies for Industry 4.0
Challenge: Find the best
location for wind turbines in
a small wind farm.

11. Renewable Energy 2
Solution: Use computer model of the urban
environment.
Spanish software company has developed a wind-flow
model using 3D urban model. Coupled with statistical
weather data, it provides an accurate model of the wind
flow and hence can inform on where to site the wind
turbines.
Advanced Technologies for Industry 4.0

12. Renewable Energy 3
Benefits:
The cost per square meter of doing a computer simulation
compared to taking real measurements drops dramatically
(factor of over 1000).
Market for SWT installations in UK estimated around
600,000 by RenewablesUK, which could make a major
contribution to de-carbonising our energy supply.
Advanced Technologies for Industry 4.0

13. Example 4: Smart Production Line
A breakdown on the production line can be very costly. In
this example of the dairy industry the product is perishable;
the line must be cleaned and waste must be disposed of
correctly. If maintenance can be scheduled before a
breakdown occurs, a lot of expense can be saved.
Advanced Technologies for Industry 4.0
Challenge: Predict when a
production line will require
maintenance to avoid costly
breakdown.

14. Smart Production Line 2
Solution: Use production line condition data and
machine learning to schedule maintenance.
University of Portsmouth developing ML algorithms running
on EPCC’s HPC systems to identify conditions that lead to
breakdown.
Advanced Technologies for Industry 4.0

15. Smart Production Line 3
Benefits:
Major saving due to lower breakdown of production line. A
milk-bottling line breaks down around 3 times per year, with
a typical breakdown being 6 days at a cost of around
£300,000 per day.
With enough HPC, the system could scale to serve
thousands of production lines across the globe in many
different industries.
Advanced Technologies for Industry 4.0

16. Collaboration Works
“The partnership enabled us to leverage the skills of EPCC.
The business benefits are two-fold. One, it keeps us ahead
of our competition. Secondly it opens a new business
model to us – now we are able to sell through the cloud on
a pay-per-use, which certainly enhances our ability to
grow.”
Craig Wheatley, Technical Director at IES
Advanced Technologies for Industry 4.0

17. Next steps
EPCC has worked in collaborative way to solve industry
problems for over 25 years
Access to funding programmes, or on a purely commercial
basis.
Talk to the commercial team.
Advanced Technologies for Industry 4.0