Chris Lee, Autodesk senior manager for Asean manufacturing industry. AZMAN GHANI / The Star
Product designers and manufacturers can now easily link sensors to big data analytics platforms and integrate real time, predictive and prescriptive analytics into their work.
In factories, data collected such as room temperature and wear-and-tear of machinery will provide insights and patterns for the managers to run it more efficiently.
This is all part of the much-hyped IoT, an ecosystem of devices with sensors and network connectivity that are capable of transmitting data over the Internet.
Research firm IDC forecasts that the global IoT market is set to grow to US$1.7tril (RM7.15tril) in 2020, with 29.5 billion connected devices such as cars and refrigerators.
Autodesk, known for its AutoCad computer aided design software, has bought SeeControl, an enterprise IoT cloud service platform that allows manufacturers to monitor their products live.
Autodesk Asean senior manager for manufacturing industry of Asean Chris Lee says that this platform would be useful in new manufacturing processes involving a high level of customisation.
Lee said that additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing, was an example of this new manufacturing process. The process uses digital 3D design data to build components in layers by processing materials such as steel, plastic and glass.
Today, people do not need to go to large-scale manufacturers and factories to produce electronic parts. There are advanced AM factories to design and fabricate the parts needed.
Connected services is another trend. For example, when a user walks into the room, the aircond will be able to easily adjust the temperature according to the body heat of the person with the data available through wearables such as smartwatches and smartbands.
The more we use these smart devices, the more intelligent they will get as they are able to learn from the data available through analytics.
Currently, Autodesk is looking at four key industries with the potential for further growth – manufacturing, media and entertainment, AEC (architecture, engineering and construction), and AutoCAD.
