The transformation of manufacturing industry and the landing of smart factories

Smart ManufacturingTransformation is an inevitable trend and also an important direction for the future development of the manufacturing industry. Whether it is changes in population structure leading to sustained increases in labor costs or rapid updates in market demand, there is a demand for flexibility in factories. The future production line must be efficient, energy-saving, and agile in response to uncertain external environmental changes.

At present, countries around the world are beginning to realize the important role of advanced technology in manufacturing. Germany has proposed the Industry 4.0 strategy, hoping to use cyber physical systems to enhance the level of manufacturing. The United States launched the Industrial Internet to gain insight into new opportunities through monitoring and analysis of networked machines. At the same time, Japan has formulated a roadmap for the development of Intelligent Society 5.0, attempting to surpass Germany's Industry 4.0. China is also vigorously promoting the transformation and upgrading of intelligent manufacturing, large-scale machine replacement, and moving towards a new model of Internet plus manufacturing.

The competition in the future manufacturing industry will be a competition in manufacturing technology. The production of factories, from raw material supply to product design, manufacturing, testing and use, will be connected, analyzed and predicted through networks and virtual computing, using the most flexible means to achieve the production and manufacturing of products needed by the market, meeting user needs while minimizing manufacturing costs.

Smart factories are not far away

In the near future, the manufacturing industry will complete digital transformation and ultimately achieve so-called intelligent manufacturing. More and more factory managers believe that investing in emerging technologies can lead to better development in the coming years. The continuous invasion of new technologies will lead to technological changes in the manufacturing industry that have existed before and in the future.

For manufacturers, not mastering emerging technologies may lead to the risk of falling behind or being eliminated. The market demand is constantly changing, making it difficult for manufacturers to grasp. People are gradually seeing the benefits brought by smart factories and recognizing the direction of future manufacturing development.

Personalized and rapid demands make the product manufacturing process more complex, and customers hope to change the product into what they truly want. In smart factories, deploying a large number of intelligent machines can flexibly support various production tasks, make decisions in unstructured ways, and make production processes more autonomous.

Combining cutting-edge technology with traditional manpower

Future manufacturing will combine technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and big data to further improve product configuration, production planning, and real-time decision-making, thereby optimizing profitability. In intelligent manufacturing, more cutting-edge technologies such as the Internet of Things are used to connect everyone, products, and devices in the factory, enabling humans and machines to work together and create more efficient and cost-effective business processes.

The Internet of Things itself connects people with business processes, always putting people first. Smart factories can better serve customers and employees in various ways. The discussion of smart factories is not only about capturing data, but also about how to process data after obtaining it. Analyzing various data from around machines or factories to generate actionable insights is crucial for improving business.

Through the factory's IoT system, people have a deep understanding of production equipment, can timely identify devices with poor performance, and dispatch on-site technical personnel directly based on fault data to solve problems before crises occur, without wasting time and causing downtime risks.

Both workers and consumers can benefit from IoT technology in the future. Smart factories combine cutting-edge technology with traditional human labor to ultimately improve efficiency and reduce costs, and create and innovate a better development environment.

The different talent needs of smart factories

In the past, worker productivity was an important driving force for the development of the manufacturing industry, but today, labor costs are rising year by year, and the manufacturing industry is facing new challenges. In order to cope with this crisis, factories and enterprises have invested heavily in industrial robots and automation equipment, freeing up manpower for traditional repetitive labor positions.

With the application of Internet of Things technology in factories and the integration of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT), the issues of factory operations will become further complex. The investment in new technologies will create more jobs, potentially resulting in tens of thousands of manufacturing job vacancies, and factory enterprises need to cope with constantly changing job requirements.

In the future, factories will upgrade to smart factories, and repetitive labor positions will be replaced by robots. Manufacturers must cultivate a new generation of skilled production workers and managers. After the replacement of machines with humans, humans need to shift to higher tech job positions, so companies need to provide employee training to upgrade ordinary workers to technical specialists.

Article source:OFweek Intelligent Manufacturing

He Yang/Organizing and recommending