There’s no denying that consumerism (Power Supply) is scaling at a tremendous pace all over the world. And for industries to be able to meet the market demands, an increase in production is inevitable. However, increasing the production rates is a lot easier said than done.
When a factory or manufacturing facility plans to increase its yield, there are several changes that need to be made. For starters, the same workforce may prove to be inefficient due to the limitations of the human body.
On the other hand, there are quality concerns for the products as well. Increased production rates also possess higher possibilities for errors and quality defects.
This is where automation is proving to be a wonderful relief measure for businesses. Robotics, software integration, power testing, and a lot many other tools are helping the automated industries to prepare for future-proof manufacturing.
That being said, there’s still one challenge that automation has to deal with- the need for electricity. Power outages, uneven supplies, and also AC-DC optimization are some of the common issues that can interrupt the production at an automated facility.
Power Outages
The leading concerns for any manufacturing facility are the blackouts and brownouts. Millions of dollars are lost every year in production processes due to power outages. Of course, when there’s no power supply, the machineries would come to a halt. Brownouts, on the other hand, increase the cost of maintenance for a manufacturing plant. When there are voltage or current fluctuations, the control systems for the machines tend to fail. And if not so, they may develop other faults. We shall discuss how brownouts affect the industries, a little later.
Right now, the major concern with the production process is the blackouts. Industries often opt for backup generators to curb with the production losses. Diesel generators such as these, https://krugerpower.com.au/kubota-diesel-generators.html offer an economical solution to such problems. Diesel fuel is easily available and produces more latent heat of combustion, as compared to other fuels such as petrol or natural gas. Moreover, for industrial applications, the power needed is a lot more than domestic needs. And once again, backup generators prove a quick solution for such high power needs.
Uneven Power Supply
Coming to the brownouts, as already mentioned, they possess a higher risk of damaging the machinery. Of course, a damaged machine would demand expenses to be made on repairs, thus causing a financial drain for the industry. Moreover, damaged machines won’t produce any outcome, which furthermore worsens the situation for the manufacturing plants. Mostly, because the plants would not be producing the desired yield, which subsequently would result in reduced revenue generation. That’s a lot of losses for a manufacturing facility.
At this point, when a manufacturing facility is opting for automation, it may require preparing for such adversities as well. In-plant transformers and voltage stabilizers are thus a necessary piece of equipment. Modern machineries often come paired with inverters and voltage stabilizers built into the system. However, the wide range of power fluctuations cannot be covered by a miniature in-built power adjuster. Which necessitates the installation of an external power regulator in manufacturing plants, regardless of the type of machinery and their models.
AC-DC Optimization
When a plant is being automated, there are several technologies that need optimization. For example, most of the control panels in modern robotics and production machines are electronic. In other words, the circuitry precisely uses a limited voltage and current, which is fractionally a very small part of the grid supply. In addition to this, electronic circuits mostly use DC voltage and current, which is not usually supplied through grids. In fact, no backup generator produces DC current, either. This brings us to another necessary power delivery method that a modern manufacturing plant would need when undergoing automation, AC-DC conversion.
Considering that most manufacturing units are supplied with hundreds of volts and several Amperes of current, electronic equipment may fail to use this power as it is. A simple mobile phone charger converts the regular grid supply into smaller power units along with changing it from AC to DC. The same principle is used for industrial electronic equipment. Most of the electronic equipment is usually found in testing and quality control areas. Therefore, several industries often choose to supply these facilities with a separate power source, ensuring that there is no reason for any failure or fault developing in the equipment.
The modern industries cannot scale up without integrating automation into their manufacturing processes. And to be able to do so without any problem they also need to consider the necessity for power supply management.
