Miller Magazine Issue: 116 August 2019

55 COVER STORY MILLER / AUGUST 2019 12 - 14 November 2019 InterContinental Geneva, Switzerland globalgrainevents.com/geneva Keynote address already confirmed by DAN BASSE , giving you his 12-month forecasts NEW: Digitalisation Workshop day looking into all factors and impacts of digitalising trade Get the Super Early Bird rate & SAVE MINIMUM £400 achieve digital transformation? What does the digital future look like for milling? The milling industry will have to embrace IoT, or they will be left behind. Regulatory compliance, recall procedures, food security, and innovations will force them to stay cur- rent. Plant optimization, cost competitiveness, and produc- tivity gains are the benefits of a digital plant. Future IoT Mills will work within a secure wireless net- work, and they will be supporting a highly automated process, linked seamlessly with enterprise software working through the cloud. Operators are controlling the mills from their tablets, with all the facility data at the fingertips, including the equipment manuals. Is there any ready solution in the Industry 4.0 process for the milling industry? As we know, Industry 4.0 refers to the fourth indus- try revolution; it’s the way we produce product due to digital transformation. IoT makes 4.0 possible and smart factory a reality. Equipment in our process industry is getting smarter, and they are producing critical data that are essential to increase productivity. These machines are connected with one another and create and share information. In our milling industry, we have smarter roller mills, scaling systems, moisture controller that are com- municating with the plant master controller, and some are communicating with each other producing better re- sults. In our industry, I see the adaptation of Industry 4.0 to be slow due to its cost, but it will happen. Is there anything else you’d like to add? Having worked in the automation field for 25 years, it excites me to the see where we have come from, and where we are going. Soon a typical flour bag will con- tain wheat origination information, and where the flour was made among other things. Millennials are the driving force behind this requirement, and we better adapt. This technology revolution, though very slow to adapt in the milling and grains industry, is here to stay.