How Does Industrial Internet of Things Impact the Textile Industry

Industrial IoT, short for Industrial Internet of Things, is described as the extension and applications of the Internet of Thing (IoT) in industrial sectors. The industries using IoT are focus on the machine to machine (M2M) communication and big data, machine monitoring. Just like the original Internet of Things (IoT), Industrial IoT is used across many industries, such as Industry 4.0 technology, logistics, injection molding, and textile machine monitoring. This article is a complete guide to industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) with definitions, applications, challenges, and textile industry requirements across the globe.

As mentioned above, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) goes beyond the range of the interconnection network of ordinary consumer devices and physical devices. What makes IIoT distinct from original Internet of Things (IoT) is the intersection of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT). Operational technology (OT) refers to the operation process and industrial control systems (ICSs) network, including human-machine interface (HMI), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, distributed control system (DCS), and programmable logic controllers (PLCs).

The IT and OT convergence enables a greater system integration, more direct control, and complete equipment health monitoring through smart sensors, actuators, and remote-control systems. In this respect, IIoT can simplify the monitoring and control of physical infrastructure in industrial operations such as logistics, manufacturing (Industry 4.0), transportation, and utilities.

Under the background of industry 4.0, IIoT is the necessary component in the use of big data and analysis to set up the digital transformation between the cyber-physical systems and production processes. In the textile industry, it was impossible to update and refresh the textile machine’s data remotely in the past. This causes the cumbersome, time-consuming, labor-intensive, and inefficient during the pattern distribution procedure.

By analyzing the real-time data from the sensors and other sources, its process efficiency can be improved. Moreover, the machines can also perform and automate tasks that the previous industrial revolution could not realize. In a broader context, the Industrial Internet of Things is crucial to use cases related to textile machinery or industry 4.0 manufacturing, such as how textile manufacturing becomes smart manufacturing and how factories become smart factories.

For example, in the case of equipment status display and abnormal monitoring, the operator cannot observe and adjust the equipment’s production operation status through a mobile device, thus cannot realize flexible production. When the production process and output are abnormal, they cannot receive the alarms in time, leading to various degrees of loss of the textile materials. By virtue of consistent data capture and transmission, IIoT enables industries and enterprises to discover errors or inefficiencies in production and solve them immediately, thereby promoting operational and financial efficiency.

With the use of IoT connectors, the operator can collect and analyze data faster. This will not only enhance scalability and performance but also bridge the gap between the production workshop and the general office. The integration of IIoT has solved the terminal usage problems, which a large number of terminal users are still using the original management method and salary model. The integration of IIoT can enable industrial entities to understand their operations’ progress and help them make informed decisions.

In the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) implementation, three areas need to be focused on: availability, scalability, and security. ROOTCLOUD has developed a complete ICSM system along with an OEE equipment solution for the textile industry. The C-Box Connector of ROOTCLOUD can collect the jacquard machine position, working status, and fault status in real-time and transmits the data to the cloud to realize online monitoring and remote diagnosis. Besides, the C-Box Connector can calculate the energy consumption, utilization rate, and abnormal status of the jacquard machine, which greatly reduces operators’ cumbersomeness in pattern modification and update.

Nowadays, the proliferation of smart devices has raised concerns about security vulnerabilities and security accountability. The C-Box Connector of ROOTCLOUD supports the jacquard controller’s mainstream PLC products and has full safety measures to ensure the safety of the equipment. Simultaneously, the products of ROOTCLOUD have edge computing capabilities, real-time data calculation and analysis, local storage, and offline cache capabilities. If you want to know about the detail, please check out IoT platform solutions for more information.