The idea of a smart factory is at the core of Industry 4.0. Similar to the smart cities and homes, the intelligent factory primarily involves automated operations. A combination of lean manufacturing and industry 4.0 has already led to several companies going to the route of smart factories.
Technical •January 16, 2023• 5 Min. Read
Smart manufacturing – Primary step in adapting to Industry 4.0
Industry 4.0 literally means the fourth industrial revolution. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are at the core of this revolution.
The important challenges which bother most factory owners are productivity and turnover. Manufacturing errors are at a steady rise, causing loss of revenues and efficiency. The worst problem is the inability to identify the root cause of the problems. It may be frequent downtimes or strategical decisions – or combinations of both. It could also be batch processing or delays in inventory processing.
About Industry 4.0
Industry 4.0 literally means the fourth industrial revolution. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are at the core of this revolution. Like every other revolution where efforts are directed to reduce manual labor with technologically advanced solutions that take over the dated systems. The anchor elements of this change are three key components: artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and the Internet of Things (IoT).
IoT today has enabled connectedness between billions of people with countless machines are connected through this disruptive technology, unprecedented processing power and speed, IoT has made the ubiquitous computing a reality. Data is the driving force in the connected ecosystems, and it is also an essential factor in generating insights for decision making.
With an increasing number of connected devices now exceeding the world’s population, the globally connected network is going to increase multifold. As per a report, IoT will add $11.1 trillion to the global economy by 2025.
These are a few key factors responsible for the rapid growth of sensor-based technology:
Ubiquitous Connections: Faster and affordable wireless connections are easily available almost anywhere.
Big Data: The advanced computing capabilities have given rise to the ability to process large amounts of data with increasing accuracy.
Machine Learning: Growth in machine learning technologies have made it possible to deliver efficient and actionable insights at large scales.
Open Source: Today, we have more open source resources than ever which translates to a more collaborative environment.
Power-efficient Silicon: The rise of smartphones continues to significantly reduce the cost of silicon, driving down costs for everything from components to sensors to central processing units and beyond.
Silicon availability: The exceptional growth of smartphones has significantly reduced the cost of silicon. This has resulted in lower costs for every processing element; right from components and sensors to central processing units and more.
With global spending on digital transformation expected to reach $2.1 trillion by 2021, it is evident that we are in the middle of an unprecedented disruption which will involve digitization driving most of operations and innovations.