Uptime and Automation Among Key Design Objectives for Industrial Machinery

The National Fluid Power Association (NFPA) is currently working on the creation of its next technology roadmap which will focus on fluid power technological development needs for industrial applications. A key first step in developing this document is determining the customer drivers and strategies important to OEMs and machine builders in the industrial market.

These customer drivers and strategies signify desired performance objectives those manufacturing industrial machinery are hoping to achieve. By understanding these, hydraulic and pneumatic companies serving this sector can better ensure they are developing technologies capable of helping meet these objectives.

NFPA decided to launch a new road mapping effort specifically focused on industrial applications in late 2024 because of the continued importance of this sector to the fluid power industry.

Lanke said there was a lot of variation across the different industrial markets as to which objectives were most important. For instance, compliance with regulations was noted as very important for those in the medical equipment manufacturing and aerospace manufacturing segments — understandable given the public health factor involved with these markets — whereas for other markets this objective was not ranked as highly.

Increased Availability and Uptime and Increased Productivity and Performance were indicated as the most important objectives for all of the industrial markets.

Respondents were also asked to offer suggestions for new customer drivers they consider important for their customer markets. Electrification was a commonly noted driver among several industrial market sectors including aerospace manufacturing, medical equipment manufacturing, packaging machinery, and food product machinery.

Read "Fluid Power is Expanding Beyond Hydraulics and Pneumatics" to learn how NFPA is expanding its membership categories to recognized the continued evolution of the fluid power industry. 

Precision Control Ranks as a Top Technological Priority for Machine Builders

NFPA also used its January survey to determine the customer strategies — the machine-level objective or technology machine builders are using or intend to use in order to meet their performance objectives — important to industrial applications.

Respondents were asked to rank the importance of eight different customer strategies which were again determined based on the previous technology roadmap and their applicability to industrial machinery:

• Automation
• Compactness
• Connectivity
• Energy Efficiency
• Maintenance
• Materials
• Noise
• Precision Control.

Similar to the customer drivers, there was wide variation in importance based on market. Connectivity was ranked highly as an important customer strategy for those in the medical equipment manufacturing, vehicle manufacturing, and robotics, assembly and material handling sectors but less so for most other industrial markets.

Lanke said all of the customer strategies appear to be important to some degree based on the survey results, but for most of the industrial markets automation, maintenance and precision control were noted as the most important customer strategies.

Respondents were also asked to offer suggestions for new customer strategies of importance to them. Here again electrification was mentioned for multiple markets including aerospace manufacturing, oil and gas machinery, and metalworking and machine tools. Cost avoidance was another strategy noted as important for multiple markets.

Next Steps for the NFPA Industrial Technology Roadmap

Based on the results of the customer drivers and strategies survey, NFPA’s Industrial Technology Task Force has defined and prioritized those that will be included in the roadmap.

Four Customer Drivers were chosen as those most important for machine builders to provide their customers:

• Increased Availability and Uptime – The robustness of the machine and its ability to work continuously.
• Increased Productivity and Performance – The efficiency of the machine and its ability to do more work in less time.
• Compliance with Regulations – Such as those pertaining to environmental, safety or other concerns.
• Lower Total Cost of Ownership – Includes capital and/or operating costs.

To meet these performance objectives, the task force also denoted the nine key Customer Strategies machine builders are or will be employing:

• Automation – Incorporating either semi- or fully autonomous functions and/or operations on a machine.
• Compactness – Increasing power density of a machine without increasing its weight and/or size.
• Connectivity – Expanding the use of data, such as intelligence for cloud-based condition monitoring, integration with site management systems, and/or communicating machine status for other value-added purposes.
• Electrification – Moving towards electric actuation to improve efficiency or control on the machine.
• Energy Efficiency – Increasing energy efficiency, including strategies to extend operation life, use less energy and/or reduce emissions.
• Environmental Impact – Reducing environmental impact, including strategies to lower noise, reduce leaks and/or use environmentally safe fluids.
• Maintenance and Support – Making it easier to maintain the machine, including strategies to ease initial integration and implementation, to provide documentation support, to ease the serviceability of the machine, and to increase the availability of repair or replacement parts.
• Materials – Use of conflict and/or environmentally-friendly materials in strategic ways to better comply with regulations.
• Precision Control – Improving the ability to manage a system or process on the machine with high accuracy and minimal error, including through the use of sensors.
• Safety – Improving the safe use of the machine.