Leonardo 4.0 – safely digitising industrial processes

12 July 2021

Supporting digital transformation in the manufacturing sector to increase efficiency and reduce product development times and costs: these are the objectives of the Leonardo 4.0 project.

Co-financed by the European Union through the ERDF - PON 2014-2020 Research and Innovation funds, the project is led by Leonardo in Italy, with the University of Salerno, the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Digitalcomoedia and Youbiquo also being team members.

The project aims to develop a software solution oriented to the Industry 4.0 paradigm, which will then be comprehensively tested within Leonardo, before the company initiates the digitalisation of its production at sites across Italy in order to increase their efficiency. In total, 11 Leonardo manufacturing sites across Italy are involved across four different thematic areas (Cyber Security, Electronics, Aerostructures and Helicopters).

Leonardo Secure Connected Factory

The project is based on the Leonardo Secure Connected Factory platform, which uses innovative technologies and knowledge of industrial processes to support digital transformation in the manufacturing sector by exploiting a model that integrates advanced applications for managing a production plant and allows increased efficiency and reduced product development times and costs.

The use of technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Edge computing, Big Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality enables the enhancement of the large amounts of data generated by industrial machines, as well as the implementation of innovative data-centric solutions for manufacturing, maintenance and after sales.

Data-centric for equipment efficiency and performance evaluation

Leonardo 4.0 has overseen the development of solutions integrating operating and telemetry data of industrial machines into interactive dashboards updated in real time. The correlation of the acquired data allows verification of individual machines’ or the whole plant’s efficiency. Furthermore, it enables quality control of the production process, as well as predictive analysis to improve equipment maintenance processes by reducing inefficiencies that occur due to unexpected failures.

Real-time solutions have also been implemented to control the efficiency of production equipment in order to maintain a high level of processing quality and provide an efficient replacement of tools and their reconditioning.

When it comes to Customer Service and Product Improvement, the Secure Connected Factory platform is used to create a pool of data generated by multiple sources in order to calculate maintenance KPIs for components and subsystems that are fundamental for logistics and product engineering.

The Secure Connected Factory and digital transformation projects developed as part of Leonardo 4.0 benefit from the best Cyber Security solutions that ensure protection and confidentiality of the information acquired by the machines and used within the technological solutions.

 

For more information, please email: cyberandsecurity@leonardo.com

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