Supply chain management is a continuously developing industry that keeps bringing new ways and means to the table each new day. Keeping up with the most important industrial manufacturing trends can improve your manufacturing operation directly through analysis and development of a much more concise understanding of your own processes and how to refine them.
These are the four industrial manufacturing trends that operations managers should be reading up on in 2018:
Industry 4.0 provides breakthrough capabilities to production facilities that are changing the industry as a whole through simple system integration. The system includes various benefits such as:
These benefits are efficiently optimizing manufacturing operations around the globe and enhancing the manufacturing industry. As Industry 4.0 is a rising star as an industrial movement; it could very well become necessity for future production facilities to be able to keep up with competition as the old high water mark is elevated across all boards.
Through technological advancements and reduction in the cost of delivery of automation technologies, we continue to map this upward curve in automated efficiency. As human labor is needed less in increasingly standardized manufacturing, robots and machines are beginning to take the lead role in production in an augmented, adequate manner. Automation is modifying roles of workers and work, and not only in the production sphere, but also through automating company tasking in essential areas such as:
Increasing automation can be a major hurdle, and developing a strategic approach can be be a calming factor when abandoning your previous methods of control and human quality assurance methods that you have come to trust and rely upon. Considering what attributes are absolutely vital to your operation can aid in the decision making of implementation of automation technology and where and when to employ it.
As manufacturing operations are attempting to locate ways to optimize production, Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming a beneficial and challenging component to implement into operations. As manufacturing is evolving, production facilities are beginning to value strategic thinking through management of data. This is where implementation of IoT can be beneficial, along with various other upsides such as:
Manufacturing operations are finding their way to becoming completely online-based everyday. Integration of simple tools from IoT allow production facilities to be able to save money while also improving throughput.
Advanced planning and scheduling (APS) systems are able to be easily integrated with automation and IoT systems such as Industry 4.0. With utilization of an IoT-ready system, various capabilities are utilized in order to increase production such as:
Integration of an advanced planning and scheduling system along with Industry 4.0 and IoT can optimize production through data accuracy, efficiency, and increased capacity and output.