4 strategies for smart manufacturing

Business leaders look to smart manufacturing strategies for a global view of their business, as well as the ability to identify and meet specific local needs. In the most advanced implementations, they can get to know their customers and also anticipate any details that go beyond meeting their requirements.

Having enterprise-wide visibility also enables the ability to “do anything, anytime, anywhere”, thus shifting production from one factory to another to meet changes in demand and address production bottlenecks, as these customer demands become increasingly complex and changing.

Among the benefits of implementing smart manufacturing strategies are lower costs and improved delivery times to customers, as well as improved production capacity, i.e. 25% to 50% less defective products.

In fact, a smart company is characterised by:

• Real-time data collaboration with suppliers and customers.
• Inter-departmental collaboration (e.g. feedback from production to product development)
• Reliable and predictable production capacity.
• Increased uptime and efficiency in asset production.
• Highly automated production and material handling with minimal human interaction.
• Minimised cost of quality and production.
• Availability of tools for rapid support, consistent decision making and the optimisation of industrial processes, through maintenance work as part of smart manufacturing strategies.
• Real-time links to customer demand and forecasts.
• Transparent tracking of customer orders.
• Predictive anomaly identification and fault resolution.

Today, manufacturing leaders are challenged to take their companies to the next level of digital business revolution and transformation, bringing together digital technologies with organisational, operational and business model innovation to create new ways of operating and growing business activities.

But achieving operational excellence and ensuring the quality of production is possible through the implementation of the strategies for smart manufacturing, Because agile, flexible, competitive and connected business development cannot be achieved without the intervention of modern technology. Such as, for example, those used in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) strategies. Manufacturers that make use of them maintain competitive advantages.

Technology is transforming industry, bringing to light an unprecedented amount of data from smart “things” embedded in industrial applications. The information is now available and companies that employ strategies to harness it become more productive globally. As larger and larger data sets are collected, companies are getting “smarter”.

The challenge really lies in contextualising data to make it useful and accessible to all areas of the organisation, in order to maximise efficiency and create value. Keep in mind that modernisation is also a means to implement smart manufacturing strategies and increase value with a connected enterprise.

It not only involves changes in infrastructure (such as network and security) and industrial information and control systems, but also affects supply chain considerations and workforce dynamics, including scalable computing and analytical capabilities.

Implementation of 4 strategies for smart manufacturing

1. Expanding infrastructure and naming standards

It is one of the strategies to communicate factories, companies and consortia; through the development of quality, large-scale broadband for industry. Standards must be defined and reference must be made to the architecture that best suits today's requirements.

2. To train and educate professionals for the development of the new enterprise and adapt the industry to technological advances.

Leveraging continuing professional education and training to advance the new activities of networked systems and intelligent methods will be of particular relevance during the management and interpretation of higher volume data for shorter response times.

3. Establish a legal and juridical framework in line with the development of a smart factory.

Another strategy for smart manufacturing is to consider a new legal and regulatory framework related, among other aspects, to promoting the security and protection of the new smart media and the information they manage and exchange, as well as encouraging auditing practices or other self-regulatory mechanisms.

4. Assess the economic feasibility of investing in ICTs to enable Intelligent Systems.

Businesses should see the benefits of this effort. In this sense, the dissemination of success stories should be a spur to motivate companies to move in this direction.

A modernisation strategy is not always about “scrap and replace”, but rather about creating a roadmap that takes into account all aspects of the operation, including people, processes and technology. Through modernisation, manufacturers can prepare their operations for the future and take advantage of the opportunities offered by today's market.

If you want to learn about technologies to optimise industrial plants, technical facilities and production processes and implement them as strategies for smart manufacturing, as well as to find out what are the best ways to optimise the production process, then you are in the right place.asos for automated production connectivity, We invite you to subscribe to the Technology for Industry Newsletter, with the most comprehensive content on new industrial technologies, manufacturing innovations, equipment, and automation trends.