Top 4 Smart Manufacturing Trends to Increase Productivity

The adoption of digital technologies among manufacturers has become inevitable. Businesses within the manufacturing docket have to keep up with the latest trends to be competitive, increase their company's potential, and reduce human intervention. Because of embracing technological innovations, smart manufacturing trends have evolved tremendously. However, it is quite clear that trends in technology keep evolving, with new ideas coming out yearly. We are currently in the age of the industrial Internet of Things and smart manufacturing. The covid pandemic forced the move into smart manufacturing by all companies that were reluctant to do so. After the pandemic, the demand for transformation into digital manufacturing increased exponentially. Today, industries are investing in the latest technologies to introduce the smart factor to manufacturing.

Smart Manufacturing Applications

Monitoring the condition of machine health - Since 2021, there has been a steady increase in using sensor technology and its demand is currently at an all-time high. The high demand is because it enhances manufacturers' ability to remote condition asset monitoring, which offers a lot of help to manufacturing businesses. Condition monitoring permits manufacturers to follow up on the condition of assets, such as humidity, temperature, speed, vibration, etc., via sensor technology. It aids manufacturing in determining changes that show flaws in the system. Remote condition monitoring elevates the overall health of the machines. If the machines are in good health, this will lead to quality production and an increase in output quality.

Embracing hyper-automation - Automation aids manufacturers in the elimination of error-prone and time-consuming manufacturing operations and does the balance on shortage of labor. Where there's a shortage of workers, automation helps manufacturers to compensate effectively. Manufacturing automation employs technologies like AI, sensors, and process automation. They can handle repetitive tasks and elevate consistency, decision making and quality operations within the industry.

5G - This fifth generation of wireless technology has seen full adoption in smart manufacturing. It is likely to play a significant role in the industry because of what it offers. Using 5G, a manufacturing company can increase its quality in production quality, heighten security, reduce costs, enhance efficiency, attain sustainability and gain a competitive edge. 5G enables manufacturers to develop a wide wireless sensor network that collects insights from the industrial IoT platform to aid in automation and amplify data collection.

Predictive maintenance - Despite being a new trend, predictions show it is likely to take shape in the coming years. By employing predictive maintenance, manufacturers can have a performance analysis record for their machines, equipment, and tools and follow up on the manufacturing process through big data and AI. Furthermore, by replacing human duties with technology and automating the process of forecasting any abnormalities, manufacturers may save money, predict purchase requests, and better manage inventories.

Smart Manufacturing Benefits

Reduction in downtime - Downtime is usually frustrating, costly and wasteful. It is quite common among the operations team and its impact on business is severe. It may lead to disruptions in the supply chain, delays, and missed deadlines. Although manufacturers expect downtime to be part of the process, it is manageable using predictive and preventive maintenance solutions. In case of downtime, smart manufacturing equipment reduces its impact and boosts the implementation of corrective action.

Seamless production processes - New industrial revolutions are likely to occur frequently with smart factories. This is because it allows capturing production data and data analysis to come up with the best way of doing tasks. If new practices are discovered, implementation into the production process is seamless.