AWS for Industries

Edge2Web no-code tools suite for AWS IoT SiteWise

Powered by AWS IoT SiteWise, Edge2Web Factory Insights is a ready-made SaaS smart manufacturing solution tailored to shop floor operators, supervisors, and managers. Factory Insights gives organizations instant visibility into key performance metrics such as Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), Overall Operations Effectiveness (OOE), Total Effective Equipment Performance (TEEP), and MTBF/MTTR. Manufacturers use Factory Insights to rapidly analyze machine availability, identify downtime root causes, improve product quality, and optimize production performance. Factory Insights functionality can be extended using Edge2Web’s (E2W) renowned Low-code Tools – Edge2Web Director and Edge2Web Flow Server – and includes a comprehensive suite of No-Code Tools for process engineers and plant data analysts.

In the previous blog, we provided an overview of Factory Insights and a deep dive into standing the app up with AWS IoT SiteWise. In this blog, we discuss the primary drivers for choosing Factory Insights and take a deep-dive into extending core app functionality using E2W No-code Tools. To get started, Diagram 1 summarizes Edge2Web’s solution stack for AWS IoT SiteWise and related services.

AWS IoT SiteWise is a managed service that makes it easy to collect, organize, and analyze data from industrial equipment at scale, helping customers make better, data-driven decisions to achieve shop floor operational excellence and enterprise-level visibility. AWS IoT SiteWise supports bulk importing, exporting, and updating industrial equipment metadata. Users can now import and migrate equipment models and assets metadata from an external sources or different AWS accounts to AWS IoT SiteWise. It also allows the creation of re-usable sub-components, enhancing the efficiency in modeling complex industrial assets. These features have been instrumental for customers in building industrial data platforms, transforming vast amounts of OT data into actionable insights and improve decision-making processes. Edge2Web’s low-code and no-code app builder tools, and smart factory applications powered by AWS IoT SiteWise manage asset fleets, reduce machine downtime, improve product quality, and optimize production performance.

Primary reasons industrial customers choose Edge2Web Factory Insights:

  • Comprehensive KPI tracking –Edge2Web Factory Insights automatically tracks and reports aggregate OEE KPIs, as well as OEE component KPIs, for machine availability, product quality, and operating performance. Factory Insights also tracks OEE companion KPIs – OOE and TEEP – as well as other popular metrics such as MTBF/MTTR. KPIs are visualized in a variety of built-in scorecards and dashboards, and can be extended by non-programmers using Edge2Web’s No-code Tools.
  • Fast implementation time – Factory Insights can be quickly configured to adopt the practices, terminology, and conventions already in use on the customer’s shop floor. Once configured, Factory Insights tracks and reports KPIs using the customer’s shift schedules, downtime reasons, machine groupings, and other relevant settings.
  • Solution completeness and extensibility – Factory Insights includes the E2W No-code Tools suite, which enables non-programmers to rapidly create custom KPI formulas, and display formula outputs using Edge2Web’s popular scorecard layout, in traditional grid-style dashboards, and using 2D spatial layouts (more on E2W No-code Tools below). For functionality requiring advanced analytics, user data entry, and asset condition monitoring, Factory Insights can be extended by Javascript developers using Edge2Web’s powerful Low-code Tools – Director and Flow Server.
  • Platform openness – Unlike other SaaS manufacturing apps that lock factory data into proprietary storage silos, all Edge2Web solutions are integrated with AWS IoT SiteWise. By leveraging SiteWise’s open data services, Factory Insights compresses time-to-value while preserving customers’ path to also access their plant data using a vast ecosystem of other cloud solutions such as AWS Lookout for Equipment, business intelligence tools, advanced data visualization libraries, etc.
  • Scalability and security – All Edge2Web applications and front-end tools run 100% in the user’s browser, offering enterprise-level scalability by leveraging client-side compute power for computations and visualization. Edge2Web solutions are also integrated with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to deliver the security and data privacy required by global manufacturing companies.

A screenshot of one of Factory Insights’ scorecards is shown below.

E2W No-code Tools suite:

As described earlier, Factory Insights includes a suite of tools that enable non-programmers – plant data analysts, process engineers, operations engineers, etc. – to rapidly extend the provided KPIs and visualizations. The suite includes:

  • E2W Data Explorer – allows users to dynamically explore AWS IoT SiteWise data to identify trends, patterns, and anomalies. Data can be visualized in graph and tabular forms, and downloaded for use with spreadsheets, BI tools, and other applications.
  • E2W KPI Formula Builder – for creating multi-level, multi-dimensional data computations that co-mingle data attributes, operating states, events, and time series data to derive contextualized metrics. Formulas can combine data from AWS IoT SiteWise, Factory Insights, custom apps built using Edge2Web Low-code Tools, 3rd party analytics and AI services, and external databases and applications to provide uniquely powerful computations.
  • E2W Scorecard Builder – allows end users to instantly view KPIs created in E2W Formula Builder using Edge2Web’s popular scorecard layout. Scorecards provide built-in asset, group, and time selectors to give end users ready-made access to the data and KPIs they need.
  • E2W Dashboard Builder – enables non-programmers to create an unlimited variety of dashboard visualizations. E2W Dashboard Builder includes tools for creating traditional grid (row/column) layouts and 2D spatial layouts. In addition to supporting a library of display widgets (line/area graphs, charts, gauges, etc.), dashboards can co-mingle visualizations created in E2W Score.

How it works

Deployment of Factory Insights is very straightforward. Customers typically use Edge2Web’s asset utilities to model plant assets and import asset data into AWS IoT SiteWise. AWS IoT SiteWise then uses the customer’s existing plant automation and networking infrastructure to ingest and store time series (tag) data.

Edge2Web provisions the Factory Insights application and No-code Tools (and optional Low-code Tools) into the customer’s AWS tenant, and the customer then configures the application using provided settings screens. The configuration step can typically be completed in a few hours. Once configured, Factory Insights automatically connects to the customer’s SiteWise instance and computes/visualizes performance KPIs based on user-defined shift schedules, machine groupings, reason trees, and other manufacturing contexts.

Case study

Through organic growth and acquisition, an international food & beverage manufacturer was expanding rapidly. Although the company’s product packaging lines used SCADA for automation, performance KPIs such as OEE were computed using spreadsheets, and key operational procedures such as machine maintenance were managed via paper forms and work instructions. Plant supervisors and managers had little visibility about the state of critical packaging equipment. To support planned market expansion, the company needed to rapidly transform its OT infrastructure to become more lean and agile.

The company chose Edge2Web Factory Insights, Edge2Web Low-code and No-code Tools, and AWS IoT SiteWise as the foundation of its new digital factory infrastructure. The factory asset model was exported from the plant historian and replicated in SiteWise using Edge2Web’s asset utilities. Asset and process data streams were then ingested into AWS IoT SiteWise using AWS IoT Greengrass. Edge2Web Factory Insights was configured to use the company’s plant shift schedules, operating state codes, reason trees, and machine groups – quickly enabling cloud-based KPI tracking and visualization.

The company deployed Edge2Web Flow Server to continuously monitor asset operating conditions. Flow Server applications were created to track critical asset properties and notify plant personnel of potential problems to avoid unplanned downtime.

To replace inefficient paper processes, the company used Edge2Web Director to create digital checklists, instructions, and workflows for machine maintenance engineers. The company’s process engineers also used E2W Low-code Tools to create custom KPIs for tracking energy utilization and product costs, and integrated custom dashboards into the Factory Insights application menu for end users.

All Factory Insights and custom app components can be accessed from user desktops and mobile devices, addressing the endpoint device requirements of all the company’s users.

Conclusion

Edge2Web Factory Insights is a ready-made SaaS application that gives manufacturers instant visibility into critical KPIs such as OEE, asset availability, product quality, and production performance. Core Factory Insights functionality can be rapidly extended by app developers using Edge2Web’s Low-code Tools – Director and Flow Server – and by non-programmers using the E2W No-Code Tools suite.

This blog post is a continuation of our Driving Manufacturing Improvements with Edge2Web Factory Insights and AWS IoT SiteWise series (Read previous blog here).

The fastest step to learning more about Edge2Web solutions for AWS IoT SiteWise is to schedule a 30-minute product demo. Readers who are interested in getting hands-on with Edge2Web Factory Insights can sign-up for a free sandbox account, which comes with guided instructions for self-demoing the Factory Insights app. Please visit Edge2Web’s website for additional information on E2W Low-code Tools and No-code Tools for AWS IoT SiteWise.

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Krishna Doddapaneni

Krishna Doddapaneni

Krishna is an AWS Worldwide Technical Lead for Industry Partner in IoT essentially helping partners and customers build crazy and innovative IoT products and solutions on AWS. Krishna has a Ph.D. in Wireless Sensor Networks and a Postdoc in Robotic Sensor Networks. He is passionate about ‘connected’ solutions, technologies, security and their services.

Eddie Budgen

Eddie Budgen

Eddie Budgen is the VP of Customer Success at Edge2Web. He is based in London and Milan where he leads Edge2Web's worldwide customer and partner engagement activities. A deeply experienced business development leader, Eddie holds a BS in Mathematics from Imperial College in London.

Fred Holahan

Fred Holahan

Fred Holahan is the Edge2Web co-founder and CEO. He is a serial entrepreneur and four-time company co-founder, Fred leads Edge2Web's business strategy and go-to-market activities. He holds a BS in Operations Research from the University of Maine, and an MBA in Entrepreneurship and Corporate Strategy from Babson College.

Sharon Allpress

Sharon Allpress

Sharon Allpress is a Principal Partner Development Specialist at Amazon Web Services (AWS) where she works with AWS partners that build solutions which drive business outcomes for industrial customers. Sharon has over 15 years of experience delivering operational technology solutions in IoT, machine learning, and GIS for energy and manufacturing customers on the digital transformation journey.