Industry 4.0 has overtaken the world, and the most significant aspect of it is smart manufacturing. Before we start to understand how it will impact your factory, let’s begin with knowing about what it is.
What is smart manufacturing?
It is an application of IIot(Industry Internet of Things). It relates to interconnected sensors, machines, and other tools networked together with computers and their industrial applications, including production and resource management.
It implements in smart factories and enables a technology-driven strategy that employs machinery connected with the internet to control the manufacturing process. The goal of a smart-factory is to recognize opportunities for automating procedures and use customer engagement analytics to improve the overall efficiency.
Why is smart manufacturing the most significant industrial evolution?
The first industrial revolution began over 260 years ago, somewhere around 1760. The most recent gets referred to as smart-manufacturing or Industry 4.0.
The highlight of the first industrial revolution was steam power and the power machine.
The second revolution bought a series of assembly lines that had a drastic impact on the industry supply chain. Whereas, the third industrial revolution came along with automation and data enhancement.
However, until the Industry 4.0 came along, we were still operating machines manually hence needed people to observe the process, but not anymore. The idea of smart-manufacturing improves the machinery and allows us to command them without any need for manual observation. Interconnected automated systems proved to be a fusion of the physical, digital, and biological worlds.
Benefits of Industry 4.0:
- Productivity- Smart-manufacturing process and provide greater access to data throughout a whole supply chain system. Real-time data describes what the producer requires and when, which helps make things more profitable for suppliers, which enables them to make adjustments to orders effortlessly. They satisfy the expected order demand and reduce any material and time wastage.
- Quality- Meanwhile, when productivity gets improved, it saves money and time, which gets invested in product development. After one analysis, smart-manufacturing data registers the customer needs and enables the employers and managers to find opportunities to produce higher-quality products.
- Job opportunity- Embracing smart factory practices attracts the tech-savvy crowd as smart-manufacturing opens up the door to more technology-based manufacturing jobs. Not only does it help increase productivity and efficiency, but it also presents new versatile opportunities. Many industries that have adopted smart-factory practices report that it has boosted employment opportunities.
- Energy wastage- Earlier revolution never took carbon footprints and their environment into account, but Industry 4.0 is moving towards more responsible manufacturing. A smart factory will reduce energy wastage and also make the products affordable, which will attract more clients.
Smart-manufacturing may seem like an investment to some, but in the long run, it is going to help lower the cost of production, energy wastage and will increase the production supply. It will enable businesses to expand towards a cleaner and profitable industry.
