What Is Smart Manufacturing?

Smart manufacturing is not a new concept. However, many brands are just now beginning to incorporate the use of digital factory technology and the smart manufacturing framework of operations. Digital factory technology is a new step forward in the process of making workplaces more efficient, more highly effective at maintaining quality control, and safer for employees.

Smart manufacturing involves the use of digital models and networked devices to create a digital twin of the workplace that can be used for process monitoring, anomaly detection, and even efforts designed to increase environmental sustainability and other integral processes in the industrial sector. Digital factories often utilize 3D visualizations and other tools to make sense of planning needs, continuous evaluation, and enhancements in the real factory that they are designed to model. Smart manufacturing processes focus on improved quality of planning, shorter time to market, increased visibility throughout the business, and other aspects of business efficiency. All of these are aimed at creating a more sustainable process and better overall decision-making.

Continue reading to learn more about smart manufacturing and the digital factory technology that is changing the market for the better.

Digital factory technology is designed to boost productivity.

One advantage that a smart manufacturing process can provide to your business is the ability to increase productivity throughout. This is enacted through the use of predictive maintenance, anomaly detection, and intelligent equipment management. A digital twin offers a digital model of your factory floor, complete with all of the equipment and operational processes that go into daily functionality. With the help of this digital model, decision-makers are able to evaluate the ongoing efficiency of their overall processes and make adjustments in order to boost productivity.

With the help of this digital model, it’s possible to quickly and effectively experiment with adjustments that can make a huge difference in the effectiveness of your process and workflows. Without the help of smart manufacturing techniques, brands must make these changes in the real world and hope that they can improve the overall process. However, because optimizations aren’t guaranteed, many brands that don’t use digital factory and smart manufacturing upgrades in their environment forgo the use of these processes in most instances.

The cloud enables smart manufacturing to soar.

Cloud-based technologies are crucial in the rollout of smart manufacturing workflows. The cloud is a system designed with interoperability and connectivity at the forefront. In the business world, cloud-based technologies take the form of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).

The cloud enables greater data sharing initiatives within the confines of your team and across platforms. With the help of cloud-based systems and integrated technologies, brands are driving greater overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) across their manufacturing processes. This translates into greater profits, better uptime statistics, and better overall workplace management and employee happiness. The backbone offered by cloud technologies is essential to implementing a digital factory solution in any context. by integrating data products and monitoring solutions, a digital factory is able to merge resources and data sources together into one centralized processing space. This gives data scientists and decision-makers greater control and knowledge throughout the manufacturing center and beyond it.

Digital factory technology is revolutionizing the way that businesses operate. Inline sensors and constant uptime monitoring solutions offer a brand new outlook on the way that manufacturing and industrial fabrication can be completed. With better infrastructure, greater resource management, and predictive maintenance implementations added into the process, manufacturing has become leaner, sleeker, and smarter in order to match the pace of the modern world.