Ambient Computing brings many positive workplace outcomes, from reducing operational costs to human creativity and innovation in production

Industry 4.0 is enabling new concepts and technologies that make factories smarter. It begs the question: how do we create stronger synergies between humans and machines to improve production efficiencies, while progressing the creative cognition of human potential? This question gained traction after the global pandemic. The industry started to emphasise socio-technical considerations to enable new use cases around asset management, workplace well-being and process control, requiring ambient computing at the manufacturing edge.

What is Ambient Computing: Ambient computing is a form of ubiquitous computing, a subset of edge computing. It uses computing power to exhibit human-like intelligence in perceiving, processing and taking actions based on available data and information. In simple terms, ambient computing enables a smart agent - think of an Alexa and Siri optimised for manufacturing processes - to collaborate with people, operational technologies and assets, such as machines and autonomous mobile robots, to mitigate disruptions at the manufacturing edge.

The fusion of AI into the manufacturing edge also helps drive continuous improvement and introduces innovation of new products and services.

Working with People, Assets and Processes: Ambient computing let organizations focus on growth and innovation by bringing agility to the manufacturing edge where people, assets and processes are working together in unison to deliver required yield and throughputs.

Cybersecurity and Industry 4.0: Industry 4.0 essentially has three components: How machinery communicates in a production process, how info a system, and how information is shared throughout the manufacturing lifecycle. Learn how your cybersecurity needs to account for all three.

Ambient computing can be applied to the following: Assets monitor themselves and schedule maintenance based on wear and tear.

A smart meter system (water, air, gas, electricity and steam) manages the production environment to reduce waste and drive efficiencies by automatically adjusting its end devices such as thermostats and valves.

Automated guided vehicles and mobile robots self-manage routes and tasks based on product, people and environment.

Production and assembly floor environments monitor themselves to ensure safety and security of people, products and assets.

Smart devices such as notebooks, phones, tablets, wearables and stand-alone devices collaborate with people on risks, issues, continuous improvement and production optimization.

By transforming the manufacturing floor to be automated and self-sustainable, ambient computing can reduce operational costs, improve product quality and time-to-market and empower employees to work smarter. With access to real-time information, organizations can improve how they handle market and ecosystem disruptions with better and faster collaboration between humans and systems.

Adopting Ambient Computing: It require seven core elements to fully embrace ambient computing, fostering data availability and enhancing collaboration across people, applications, assets, and devices:

1.Edge computing for real-time decision-making and collaboration.

2.Data-as-a-service to meet evolving needs.

3.Digital twins for predictive insights.

4.Cognitive automation for continuous learning.

5.Connectivity to facilitate constant communication.

6.Quality of experience (QoE) to cater to diverse needs.

7.Trusting systems to perform reliably.

Ambient computing represents a transformative concept  that are propelling Industry 4.0 towards the realisation of smarter factories.

(The writer is  VP, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell Technologies India, views are personal)