Industry 4.0: Manufacturing's Supernova
10.28.2020 // John Denslinger
The newest industrial revolution is transforming manufacturing and supply chains. In this overview in Electronics Sourcing, John Denslinger outlines the myriad ways that digitalization is impacting business via four major technological advances – connectivity, AI and analytics, human-machine interactions and rapid engineering:
By any measure, this is a manufacturing supernova on Earth. Every aspect of production, procurement and design can be enhanced, if not optimized via digitalization. That means supplier management, production, resource planning, product design, prototyping, order management, asset utilization, quality control, employee safety, warehousing, delivery and more.
But operations is just one piece. End-to-end also includes markets, customers, suppliers, raw materials, advanced technologies, financials, communication networks, energy management, environmental stewardship and real time feedback loops coupling it all.
Denslinger goes on to detail the incentives that governments are providing to aid companies in this shift, and the potential benefits for those firms that engage with these technologies sooner rather than later.
