With the IIoT monitoring service solution, these types of errors have an immediate corrective action implemented and product continues to move in a smooth and efficient manner.
IIoT from a different perspective
Vecna Robotics discovered importance of IIoT in logistics and manufacturing production from a different lean manufacturing perspective than any other AGV vendor. In conducting an in-depth 
root-cause analysis, the leadership of the Cambridge, MA technology company was not saddled with a commitment to a specific technology solution, allowing for an authentic Value Stream Mapping (VSM).
The current state (and future state) of most AGV vendors keeps them tied to a technology or a paradigm. If changed, those vendors would experience too costly and irreparably negative ripple effects to support existing equipment as well as lower margins due to technology ramp up time.
They are stuck in their old technology. Vecna Robotics is not and this agility combined with non-stop IIoT data collection ensures the future state of customers can be modified and adapted to the needs as they arise.
Vecna Robotics RT4500-DO is built to automate the point-to-point transport of flatbed cars or carts.
This different view (one of robotics, not forklifts) has driven the use of a sensor suite, rather than an individual guidance type. This means that many different sensors can be used to achieve the best and lowest cost solution to the customer. The sensor suite allows for the system to be used in a manner that takes the best of both high cost AGV type systems and lower-cost cart type systems.
This sensor-based IIoT approach ensures the new solution is flexible and capable of complex systems (such as with high cost traditional AGV solutions), and cost-effective (such as with low-cost cart type systems). The high-level, non-stop real-time monitor technology defines materials handling as a gamechanger.
Now, for the first time, an AGV is a mechanism by which best-in-class software communicates with the vehicles for traffic control, order generation, and routing locally and remotely.
Part of the data transferred from the vehicle is local vehicle status information with respect to system anomalies. This data is also transferred directly to the clients for immediate action, providing the maintenance and support team the ability to fix issues and keep efficiencies high.
The most significant advancement is that local maintenance or support persons may never have to see these issues; with Vecna Robotics’ use of IIoT and the data transferred directly to their service facility. Vecna Robotics assesses and addresses issues before they become visible to the end-user. This nearly eliminates all user error handling and leaves these potential issues immediately in the hands of the manufacturer.
These are vital data that even expensive AGVs are lacking, demonstrating the leadership role of IIoT within the materials handing sector.
This article was published in IOT NOW – Internet of Things News
About the author:
John Hayes, vice-president of sales and logistics for Vecna Robotics, is a widely-respected thought leader for the manufacturing, distribution, and materials handling industries. For more than twenty years Hayes has been evaluating, designing, developing, and implementing innovative software and hardware solutions, with a particular focus in the AGV (automated guided vehicle) space.
