Automation 101: Work smarter, not harder, with intelligence overhead

占用跟踪

智能系统帮助简化日常任务的最有用的方法之一是通过占用跟踪. By gathering and delivering insights into the ways people are (or aren’t) moving within a space, organizations are able to hand over the reins to intelligent systems and automate a variety of tasks, ranging from simple things like adjusting lighting and temperature levels within a specific area when someone enters or exits, to more complex tasks like security monitoring that sends out alerts when someone enters a restricted location.

Further, tracking occupancy provides insights into traffic and usage patterns throughout the warehouse or factory floor. Smart building systems can gather this information with such granularity that facility personnel can monitor specific pieces of equipment, noting when they are and are not being used by employees throughout the day. Insight into these patterns allows organizations to adjust staffing or scheduled usage. Take, for example, an intelligent LED system above a major piece of equipment in a manufacturing facility. The system can provide insight into occupancy patterns around that machine, and data may reveal that a number of people are not only around the system, but stagnantly waiting to use it during the first shift, while that same machine is nearly untouched during the second shift. This data gives facility personnel insight into potential overstaffing of a certain job function or a suboptimal workflow that are causing people to get hung up. From there, management can make an informed decision to change scheduling patterns or workflow so that people are not wasting time while they wait for the machine to be free.

设备性能和维护跟踪

对于许多在工厂或工业环境中工作的人，他们的一部分时间致力于检查和手动评估设备的运行方式，从而确保生产线的运行顺利，设备不会出现故障。智能系统能够接管这项经常耗时的任务，自动收集和汇总数据并标记异常。

这些信息不仅创造了更有效的地面，而且还为设施和操作经理提供了他们需要的时间和数据做出关键决定关于设施的运行方式，提供有关设备故障最有可能发生的警报，并安排预防性维护下班时间。考虑以上示例中提到的机器，一次与长队的员工队列不断工作数小时。经理可能会结束一台非常昂贵的机器来处理工作量，或者昂贵的维修可能有助于它恢复到峰值绩效模式。但是，通过通过构建情报系统提供的数据，设施人员可以认识到问题仅与使用相关联，从而进行必要的更改，从而节省了组织数千美元（或更多），并减少到期损失的生产时间效率低下和设备故障或故障。

资产追踪

Keeping track of the myriad assetsthat pass through a facility in a day can also be a time consuming endeavor for facility personnel. From making sure product is moving through the space the way it is supposed to, to ensuring pieces of necessary equipment — things as large as forklifts and as small as ladders — are not lost, hours can be spent just making sure everything is in the proper place at the proper time, and making corrections when it is not.

为了完善曾经经过的设备的示例 - 如果产品正在通过生产并通过该设备进行操作，但随后被员工放错了位置，或者从叉车上掉下来，则在加载码头上掉下来，通过确保设备运行顺畅而节省的时间不再重要。可能会花费数小时来搜索这一项目，而这些项目只是放错了位置。但是，借助智能系统，组织有能力附加传感器充当信标to these pieces of product, giving them the ability to know exactly where an item is at any minute, ensuring that processes run smoothly from end to end and benefitting the business as a whole.

Though many people consider intelligent systems as a way to save a company money, from reducing energy costs to streamlining processes, the benefits go much further than that. For facility personnel especially, these systems can automate a variety of tasks that often eat up entire chunks of the manager’s time, and offer both the insight and the opportunity necessary to contribute to the business in more strategic ways.

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