Manufacturing is a complex and dynamic industry that faces many challenges, such as increasing competition, rising costs, changing customer demands, and environmental regulations. Doing all this while ensuring worker safety is critical. To succeed in this environment, manufacturers need to leverage the power of data from various sources, such as IoT devices, sensors, and connected machines. However, managing and analyzing this data can be difficult, especially when it is generated at the edge of the network, where connectivity and bandwidth are limited. Moreover, ensuring the security and compliance of the data and the edge components is crucial, as any breach or violation can have serious safety-related consequences.

That's why NTT DATA has developed the Smart Management Platform for Manufacturing Safety, a comprehensive and reliable solution that helps manufacturers deliver a safe working environment that is more collaborative, personalized, and accessible than ever before. While enabling a safer work environment, the solution also helps manufacturers achieve critical business and operational benefits.

With access to real-time data and better decision making, “Safe Manufacturing” is a reality through:

• Reduction in lost time due to employee absences
• Plant safety monitoring
• Employee occupancy management
• Compliance reporting

By addressing these issues, you can now drive additional benefits including:

1. Space Solutions - “Yellow Lines and Occupancy Control”

• Access to real-time information for enhanced facility risk management
• Detect resources entering restricted areas
• Monitor and report on area capacity limits
• Audio / email alerts for dangerous behavior

2. Safety Solutions - “Health Checks and Asset/Resource Monitoring”

• Employee temperature monitoring via thermal cameras
• Comprehensive facility screening
• Analyze for health planning and disease prevention
• Monitor personal protective equipment usage
• Automatic violation monitoring and notification
• Protective equipment usage reporting

The NTT DATA Smart Management Platform for Manufacturing Safety solution, built on Microsoft Azure, consists of four main components:

• Sensors and edge computing: The platform uses a secure end-to-end connection to collect data from various sources, such as IoT devices, sensors, and connected machines. The platform also deploys micro data centers near the sensors, which allow for rapid deployment of resources and faster analysis of sensor inputs. This enables end users to detect incidents and take action quickly.
• Predictive and diagnostic analytics: The platform uses advanced analytics to deliver real-time data to locations where data can provide maximum value. The platform also filters the data at the edge, and only sends data that indicates an incident or needs investigation back to the core. This reduces the data transport volumes and response times and lowers the demands on the infrastructure.
• Artificial intelligence (AI): The platform uses cognitive analytics to correlate and apply AI and machine learning techniques to the multiple edge data inputs and sources, including historical data, manufacturing information, and external data sources. This provides deeper insights to accelerate responses to developing situations and help plan for future scenarios.
• Deep learning: The platform uses the Smart Management Platform to monitor, adjust or move workloads dynamically, based on the specific situation. If additional resources are needed based on an alert, the platform can automatically scale up the network and compute power for the portions of the system that need the additional resources.