Big Data for Manufacturing

What We Do

The amount of energy used in manufacturing operations today is massive. For instance, did you know that the amount of energy used to manufacture an laptop is equivalent to the amount of energy used by 50 U.S. families over the course of a year? Or that the amount of energy required to manufacture an iPhone is equivalent to the energy used by this device over the course of 90 years? The overall purpose of the Big Data for Manufacturing project is improve manufacturing systems (milling machines, lathes, drills, etc.) by collecting and analyzing large sets of data streamed directly from the machines in real time. Our Capstone team used this data to estimate and subsequently reduce the energy consumed during manufacturing processes which could lead to lower costs of production, reduced carbon emissions, and fewer machine defects.

How We Do It

Our team applied advanced machine learning techniques on data collected from wireless IoT sensors located in milling machines; these were used to build a real-time energy prediction model that could be used by manufacturing facilities in order to estimate their overall energy usage of the machine. By utilizing our energy prediction model, manufacturers can eliminate wasted energy from their daily processes leading to sustainable manufacturing.

By using that as a baseline, we (a) identified the important features that actually make a difference in the energy consumption, which builds a feedback loop to the design processes and thus enables industry partners to design more sustainable products, in terms of manufacturing energy efficiency; and (b) developed a real-time failure prediction model that identifies the deterioration of machine tools, conducting the time-series analysis of the energy signal that feeds the machine.  

Who We Are

In a program full of talented and motivated engineers, we were lucky enough to have a team with such diverse backgrounds and various strengths, but with one essential similarity…our passion for innovation. Our project provided us with an opportunity to strengthen not only our technical skills, but our communication skills as well, which helped us develop significant relationships both professional and personal.