Smart manufacturing and smart factories

Smart factories are revolutionizing manufacturing by enabling a 7X increase in overall productivity by 2022. Capgemini found smart factories will be able to accelerate on-time delivery of finished products by 13 times, with quality indicators improving at more than 12 times the rate of improvement since 1990. Capital Expense (CAPEX) and inventory costs are predicted to be rationalized at 12 times and material, logistics & transportation costs expected to be rationalized at 11 times the rate of improvement since 1990.

The smart factory represents a leap forward from more traditional automation to a fully connected and flexible system—one that can use a constant stream of data from connected operations and production systems to learn and adapt to new demands.

Like many manufacturers, your customers are probably asking you for more – and faster. And while tactics such as Lean Six Sigma have traditionally been your operational tool of choice, that tried-and-true method is being stretched to its limits thanks to a surplus in customer and product demand. So how can manufacturers, even with limited resources, stay afloat? A new whitepaper from UPS, "The Rise of Smart Operations: Reaching New Levels of Operational Excellence," reveals the answer: improve connectivity of machines and people through the supply chain and analyze the data gathered to immediately enhance processes.

Manufacturing as we know it is changing more quickly than ever. We’re in the midst of a perfect storm of technological opportunity within the industry, with increased demand for manufactured goods, a reduced workforce of available labor to meet that need, and an influx of exciting new smart manufacturing advancements that are making robots more affordable and flexible than ever before. Smart manufacturing is becoming easier to implement as cloud-based offerings and lower costs are helping to bring these practices to more manufacturers.

The world of manufacturing is changing and in the process of speaking with clients, I’ve been asked repeatedly about what role digital technologies and automation will play in the next generation of factories. As I’ve told them every time, digitization will be central to smart factories, which represent a new revolution in manufacturing. It will completely transform the way that we observe, evaluate, and drive processes and resources within production lines.

Smart manufacturing will realise the promise and potential of Industry 4.0. In many cases, a tipping point has been reached, where machine builders and manufacturers are actively engaged in implementing smart manufacturing systems. Based on our experience in pilot projects in our own plants, we have identified seven essential features that are necessary for the implementation of Industry 4.0.

Manufacturing is getting smart. Companies are increasingly using sensors and wireless technologies to capture data at all stages of a product's life. These range from material properties and the temperatures and vibrations of equipment to the logistics of supply chains and customer details. Study and model industrial processes to save money, energy and materials, urges Andrew Kusiak.

As manufacturers move to the IIoT, how they use existing or new Manufacturing Operations Management systems is a critical architectural decision. Manufacturing operations have matured at a rapid rate over the last few years as many companies decide to implement plant level systems that integrate the manufacturing assets and control in a standard way. Indeed, large manufacturers have put a lot of emphasis on standardizing these systems across multiple plants.

Insights on smart manufacturing from the IDC Directions 2017 conference. The predicted proliferation of billions of IoT devices over the next decade and the continued vertical development of these devices is driving the need for the right tools to manage the emerging Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT).

Smart manufacturing is an endeavor to elevate the connectivity and orchestration of manufacturing processes across the entire value chain to new heights.