Co-authorship: Paulo Roberto Chiarolanza Vilela and Thiago José Barbosa Mesquita, Mechatronic Engineer and Application Specialist, respectively

Recently, we have incorporated into our vocabulary terms related to information technology and the internet: cloud, Big Data, machine learning, internet of things, artificial intelligence, among many others; but how to apply these concepts in the plant or in our work routines?

The integration of these technologies guides companies towards so- called “smart factories ”, in which all processes are automated and connected, generating data that is stored in the cloud and analyzed in real time by artificial intelligence systems, cooperating with human experts for quick decisions. and decentralized. Still incipient, some of these innovations are already in operation or in full development. Examples of this new reality are:

Industrial automation
A recurring subject still in the Third Industrial Revolution, the bioenergy sector experienced advances in industrial automation in the last three decades, with the massive adoption of Programmable Logic Controller technologies and the emergence of integrated operations centers that control from the arrival of sugarcane to the output of the final product. A good example of these real gains is in fermentation. High performance fermentation processes require special attention in terms of wort preparation, feeding conduction, temperature control and CIP procedures. The application of this type of control promotes a better distribution of sugar over time, increasing efficiency in ethanol and reducing production costs. In current values, the increase in the Distillery's General Yield (percentage) from the manual process to the automatic process by 1.43 percentage points is equivalent to more than 7.4 million reais for a distillery that produces 800 cubic meters of ethanol per day.

Process Analytical Technology
The concept of PAT, Process Analytical Technology, which can be translated as Analytical Process Technology, provides for the transfer of quality analyzes to production lines (online, inline) and has strong potential for applicability in the sugar and ethanol industries. The main representative of this concept is the NIR technology, Near infrared Spectroscopy. Practically, all samples in the sector can be analyzed using the NIR principle, such as shredded cane, bagasse, broths, pie, syrup, pasta, honey, must, wine, yeast, sugar and ethanol produced, enabling analytical detections in real time and optimizing the production process. Applications such as extraction control with direct analysis of fiber, moisture and sugars from bagasse in the wake of sugar produced and fermentation are already a reality.

MES solutions
Ten out of ten managers dream of monitoring, in real time and with precision, all industrial operations; in which an imminent problem is detected and solved by the team, which has the necessary information for decision making before deviations that compromise the quality or efficiency of the industry occur. This is possible with MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems) solutions. MES platforms acquire data from different sources (management systems, ERP, industrial automation for example), automate the organization of information by equipment, batch, operator, shift and perform analysis of metrics and production performance, statistical process control, capacity (CP, CPK), providing a wide range of information of managerial value that reduce failures and increase process reliability.

Smart Factories
The concept of smart factories consists of creating an environment where digital technologies work together, connecting automated systems and machines. So, from simple sensors to multi-component analyzers (NIR) generate real-time data, that are stored (Big Data) and define the best set-points autonomously, through simulation, optimization and fuzzy logic. The actions will be monitored by MES platforms and validated by predictive models that continually learn from each new data.

Conclusions
The sugar, ethanol and bioenergy industries have invested in technologies that aim to obtain reliable information in real time, building a path towards Industry 4.0, raising the industry to an unprecedented level of productivity, quality and operational safety. The combination of the enabling technologies of Industry 4.0 makes it possible to easily consume large amounts of data and generate analyzes and evaluations very quickly, something that, for a human, could take weeks of work. This method helps review and adjust operations based on recent plant interactions and behaviors, pinpointing relevant variables, accelerating and automating complex analyses, making humans focus only on the most relevant aspects of the industry. This all represents cost reduction and better production planning for current and future crops to generate revenue and prevent possible losses.