Article Are Smart Factories More Connected Than Ever?

Manufacturing organizations have faced numerous obstacles in recent years — including sudden rises and falls in demand, supply chain disruptions, worker safety concerns and the shift to remote work. These obstacles created new pain points for the entire industry while also exacerbating existing challenges.

Fortunately, innovative manufacturing technologies, Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are helping manufacturers navigate these challenges to transform how they operate, grow more connected and gain the resiliency needed to weather unforeseen disruptions.

You can protect your employees, meet production needs and better prepare for 2023 and beyond by implementing innovations that boost efficiency, agility and productivity across your connected factory.

Reap the benefits of IoT and IIoT.

The Internet of Things (IoT) brought a new industrial revolution — also known as Industry 4.0 — to manufacturing organizations worldwide. And now, the IIoT is fostering intelligent decision-making environments for connected devices.

IIoT-enabled tools and devices range from complex industrial robots to tiny environmental sensors. By implementing them, organizations can transform their production levels and run more intelligent, efficient factories.

Manufacturers that have adopted these ground-breaking IIoT technologies have seen benefits such as:

• Enhanced productivity
• Supply chain efficiency
• Increased revenue

But making the most of Industry 4.0 innovations requires the right infrastructure. Embracing the cloud can help manufacturers support advanced robotics, IIoT solutions and increasingly connected processes.

Empowering modern manufacturing with cloud computing

Modernizing the factory floor starts with moving your systems and processes to the cloud. With cloud migration, you'll empower modern manufacturing and support innovative, connected manufacturing initiatives, including:

• Seamless management of design, production, quality controls, vendor relations, global sales and marketing with cloud-based, centralized software
• Real-time cloud-integrated data analytics that let you quickly analyze information points to better tailor products and services
• Allowing everyone along the supply chain to view the same real-time information, making it easier to collaborate and solve problems as they arise
• Streamlining product design and time-to-market by giving engineers the ability to access high-powered digital design tools from anywhere, on any device

With enhancements like these, you’ll achieve greater visibility, productivity and success — all pivotal to smart manufacturing.

Predictive maintenance and smart sensors

Predictive maintenance technology can help you anticipate maintenance requirements for machines across your factory floor. Thanks to these tools and intelligent sensors, you can monitor equipment status and performance in real time, analyze sensor data, and compare it to standard operational data and emerging patterns to identify problems proactively.

Harnessing the power of predictive maintenance allows operators to understand failure modes, predict when maintenance will be required on any given unit, and schedule maintenance around production schedules and during less-costly times.

The key role of process automation

Automation has quickly become an essential to driving greater throughput and reducing costs, and it will continue to play a key role in driving efficiencies across the industry for years to come.

By embracing Industry 4.0 technologies to automate processes, you’ll enjoy advantages like:

• Reduced time on repetitive tasks
• Decreased waste and raw material costs
• Increased accuracy and production speed
• Reduced downtime and risk of human error

It's easy to see why process automation is here to stay — and why manufacturers are embracing these and other innovative connected factory technologies to transform operations.

Manufacturing experts on your side

Insight can help you avoid disruption, achieve business continuity, mitigate the risk of cyber threats, integrate supply chains and embrace new smart factory technology for improved, automated operations.

We’re here to serve as your technology partner — offering targeted tools and guidance at every step of the modernization journey to help your manufacturing organization achieve better business outcomes.

Stronger. Smarter. Safer. Revolutionize your factory with innovative technology from Insight.