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Technology comes at a price !
Any thing worth doing is worth doing well. And if you are an entrepreneur, this is critical !
Peter Drucker said…There are no cost centres or profit centres in business. The only resource for success is knowledge !.
Most entrepreneurs start up well below this line.
Industrial projects promoters and entrepreneurs generally look for suppliers of plant equipment for the process plant, insist on quotes on the basis of essential specifications.
Most equipment manufacturers, with due regard to competing quotes that will be collected by the
promoter, end up providing a very basic list of equipment along with basic ratings and capabilities. They sometimes go further, specifying electric power requirements and some of the utilities. All issues and equipment not described by the very basic listing of processing equipment are left unattended and assumed amongst EXCLUSIONS.
Promoters, yet to be initiated, assume they have all they need to take decisions! This is far from facts.
They have no idea of: Any of the support systems, extent of automation embodied in the scope of the listed basic equipment, inter-station conveyors, utilities equipment and their service lines, packaging equipment dictated by options on packaging styles for the target markets, raw materials / product holding storage needs, quality control and assurance needs, etc.
Citing a very recent comment…
Factory automation is so widely discussed that the "information" about all of the different systems can sometimes be as confusing as it is informative. An Automation World review of ‘ manufacturing software’ explains how automation and safety, workflow, manufacturing execution systems (MES), plus collaboration, training, and maintenance software can be integrated with each other to improve productivity, efficiency, and safety. Using these tools to control and monitor manufacturing processes will help them run more effectively, and that, predicts this article, will encourage the growth of an expanding homegrown manufacturing sector.
So what do all these foregoing ‘scriptures’ mean ?
Level of the system conceptualization that is closest to physical machines and processing equipment functions, industrial automation and safety systems are the first line of defense. If, for instance, a process section is getting too high a temperature,that it could jeopardize the product quality, it becomes detrimental, in some cases companies are still relying on people to shut them down. By automating these most critical processes, it mitigates risk, assuring quality and improves safety.
Knowledge and know how necessarily comes from proper professional guidance and plant design. One should be prepared to pay the price, if this is not already available within the entrepreneural entity. These essential needs are always customized and deliberated upon in a PROJECT DESIGN + CONCEPTUALIZATION activity.
This involves significant technology / know how inputs and should ideally be handled by those in the know.
