Industry 4.0 in the world of metalworking

When metal fabrication managers read about Industry 4.0, they often have a vague vision of a plant full of automated guided vehicles transporting blanks and formed parts from cutting to bending to welding. The thinking goes that people will handle the exceptions and autonomous machines will handle the rest.

They stop reading when they get a call from the shop floor. The automated laser cutting system is down again. What is it this time? Was it a material quality issue? Did the cutting head crash because the material bowed more than expected, and the programmer didn’t use sufficient microtabbing? Was there a sloppy exchange of the cutting head’s protective cover glass? Or did the part removal automation fail again because of dirty slats?

Consider again Industry 4.0’s promise of workers handling exceptions and autonomous systems handling the rest. The concept sounds great, but many in this business face a hard truth: With so many exceptions, what can autonomous machines manage on their own?

Actually, quite a lot these days. Lasers can adapt to different material surface conditions, even material tip-ups. On the brake, sensors can adapt to changes in forming conditions, including changes in material thickness.

Still, no matter how intelligent their machines, shops need a solid foundation to get the most out of them. Fundamental to this is the need for shop leaders to embrace curiosity and knowledge as much as they do throughput and profits. Fabricators need to do what they can to prevent, or at least minimize, the technical brain drain.

Machines are sold to be virtually maintenance-free and easy to operate. But even the most advanced machines can be beaten to death. A laser’s cover glass still needs to be changed; slats need to be cleaned. Tools for punching and bending are consumables; they don’t last forever.

Over the long term, the last thing a shop wants is to buy a machine to reduce the knowledge level on the shop floor. The more knowledge a fab shop has, the better it can control those exceptions.

Sensors and software might be able to handle certain aspects, like knowing when to change out a nozzle or detecting certain material surface conditions during cutting. In certain cases it can detect when components need to be repaired or maintained—but people still need to initiate those repairs and perform them in a conscientious manner. Whether it’s cleaning slats, lubricating drives, or anything else that helps minimize exceptions in an automated system, people need to do the work.

When people do the work well, a fab shop can control the controllable, which increases its ability to manage unavoidable exceptions. Some unavoidable exceptions are dictated by the physical nature of sheet metal. A material gauge has a tolerance, and different heats from different suppliers will cut and form differently on the fab shop floor. A fab shop’s people and processes need to account for that. Other exceptions are dictated by the unpredictable nature of material supply and customer demand, an issue that has stepped to the fore during the current pandemic recovery.

None of this is a secret. It’s why fabricators continually rank the skilled worker shortage at the top of their list of challenges. What sometimes gets misconstrued is what happens to skill once a fab shop upgrades its equipment. Ideally, new machines should never dumb down the shop floor. On the contrary, new technology should help attract the curious. Curious people might not be experienced; so few are these days. But because they’re curious, they learn. In the long run, they can lift a shop culture to new heights.

So how does a fab shop hire the curious? That’s the $64,000 question and, again, is why skilled labor remains the industry’s No. 1 challenge. But one thing’s for sure: If a curious, engaged person lands a job on a dumbed-down shop floor, that person probably won’t stay there for long.