Federal grant enables WHIN to scale IoT adoption program
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A $1 million federal grant will enable not-for-profit Wabash Heartland Innovation Network to expand its program equipping northern Indiana manufacturers with technology to make their operations more efficient and forsee potential breakdowns.
The Build to Scale Grant program, stemming from the federal Economic Development Administration, seeks to strengthen regional economies across the county with new technology and innovation. WHIN was one of 60 out of 220 applicants awarded with funding.
WHIN says the innovation-as-a-service program will take on 30 to 50 new projects thanks to the grant.
“Many of these small to medium manufacturers in our region, like I said, they’ve been doing the same business for several years,” WHIN CEO Johnny Park said. “They are so busy — bombarded operationally every day — it’s really hard for them to think about digital transformation, industry 4.0, like IoT.”
West Lafayette-based WHIN works in a 10-country northern Indiana region to enable specifically the manufacturing and agriculture industries to adapt technology called Internet of Things, or IoT. That means they initiate conversations and reduce barriers to hardware and software that aggregates information communicated through machines’ sensors to paint a picture of an operation.
As a small not-for-profit, Park said they’ve made significant strides to accelerate the adoption of innovative technologies and shorten the gap Indiana has long had in the advanced manufacturing industry.
Reducing IoT barriers
IoT’s benefits are twofold, said Greg Ottinger, vice president of strategic partnerships. The data can be used to answer productivity questions like whether a manufacturer can take on a new customer. It also is a cog in preventative and predictive maintenance, he said.
“It gives them early indication that something’s getting ready to go wrong,” he said. “So now they can plan that downtime instead of doing an Indy 500 pitstop in the middle of a production day, hoping that they have the right parts on hand to fix it.”
Sensors on machines will measure data like vibration and temperature. Paired with software, manufacturers can get modeled data to check on equipment, find ways to be more efficient and be notified prior to a machine breaking down.
To access that data, he said it’s likely a sensor already exists and an ethernet cable is all that’s needed hardware-wise. Otherwise, sensors can be installed.
WHIN CEO Johnny Park talks about two examples of IoT technology projects resulting in increased capacity and efficiency.
The result of the technology’s adoption, he said, will contribute to increased production and competitiveness for manufacturers as well as the state seeing more success and sector employment. Ottinger said one company they worked with saw over a 20% efficiency and capacity improvement after installing a platform that could monitor up to 50 machines.
As for initial cost, Park said WHIN’s subsidies have made it ” almost a no-brainer” for farmers and manufacturers to commit to trying the technology.
The not-for-profit also vets IoT companies and works as an advisor to match interested clients with trusted companies. WHIN works side-by-side with manufacturers to identify pain points and propose solutions, Park said.
Scaling up
A culmination of staffing levels, full workloads and unique processes has led to manufacturers being unable to find the time to adopt IoT, Park and Ottinger said.
When exposing producers and manufacturers to IoT previously, farmers were much more responsive to incorporating it, leaving WHIN scratching their heads as to why manufacturers lagged even with WHIN’s assistance.
Greg Ottinger, vice president of strategic partnerships, said a big hurdle for manufacturers is putting time aside to work on implementation.
Though it has reduced costs and vetted companies, Park said available manpower to actually adopt this technology is the newest barrier they are seeking to hurdle. Often, manufactuers have everything they need to put the project into motion, he said, but it goes untouched because personnel don’t have the right expertise or more likely have daily tasks crowding their time to implement it.
Therefore, the new funding will allow WHIN to expand on a few pilot programs it conducted last year to grow its operation to take on between 30 and 50 new manufacturer projects over the next three years.
WHIN plans to hire experts onto their team who can give guidance and implement IoT internally. It will address a problem they’ve had previously where they can now be more hands-on to implement the technology, rather than just introduce it.
“This grant has given us the opportunity, by hiring those people, now we have more manpower to leave our own people behind to do that project management to get them started,” Ottinger said.
It’s getting manufacturers over that implementation hump, he said, because they will realize the information generated from the effort will give them vital insight into how their operation is running.
“Our whole goal of over the next hopefully, two, maybe three months: we walk away, it’s been implemented, they know now how to run it and how valuable it is,” Ottinger said. “All of sudden, they’re finding time.”