Manufacturing is undergoing a technology-enabled transformation as businesses seek to increase competitiveness, efficiency and responsiveness in a global business landscape. The smart factory is at the core of that transformation. It uses connected equipment, integrated applications and advanced technologies, such as robotics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), to share data and achieve high levels of automation and flexibility on the factory floor and across the supply chain. A fully realized smart factory can run entire production processes autonomously, adapting to changing conditions in real time. The benefits include higher revenue, reduced cost and improved product quality.
What Is a Smart Factory?
Simply put, a smart factory integrates multiple technologies, people and big data into a single, digitally connected ecosystem to create a highly automated, self-adapting manufacturing system. It continuously collects data from the shop floor and other internal and external sources and applies analytical methods, such as machine learning, to gain insights from the data in real time. The factory then uses the insights to automatically adjust and optimize manufacturing operations, predict problems and respond to issues and trends. Smart factories also apply technology to transform other aspects of product manufacturing, from product design to supply chain management.
Key Takeaways
- A smart factory combines interconnected machines, integrated applications, big data and advanced technologies, such as robotics and AI, to share data and achieve high levels of automation and manufacturing flexibility.
- A fully realized smart factory can run production processes autonomously, adjusting in real time to problems and changing conditions.
- Smart factory benefits include increased revenue, lower costs, higher product quality, greater flexibility and improved responsiveness to customer demands.
Smart Factories Explained
Smart factories are central to the digital transformation of manufacturing known as Industry 4.0, or the fourth industrial revolution. Like the industrial revolutions before it, Industry 4.0 is expected to usher in changes as dramatic as the introduction of mechanized manufacturing (the first industrial revolution), mass production and assembly lines (the second) and electronics and information technology (the third).
Smart factories replace the disparate, nonconnected equipment and applications that characterize traditional factories with a highly connected system based on technologies such as the Industrial Internet of Things (a subset of the larger IoT that focuses on the specialized requirements of industrial applications), sensors, cloud computing, big data analytics, AI and robotics. These technologies enable companies to collect large amounts of data in real time, analyze the data and quickly act on the information. An advanced smart factory implementation can run production processes without requiring manual input, automatically adjusting on the fly. However, companies can enjoy many of the benefits of smart factories through smaller, incremental improvements to existing manufacturing operations. Those potential benefits include greater productivity, less downtime, less waste, more accurate forecasting and greater responsiveness to changing requirements.
How Do Smart Factories Work?
While traditional factories commonly use technologies such as networking, automation and sensors, these systems are typically not interconnected and operate in isolation. Smart factories integrate those technologies to collect data and deliver new levels of efficiency, flexibility and autonomous operation. For example, many traditional factories have applied automation to aspects of their operations, such as production line equipment and warehouse management. But those islands of automation remain largely disconnected from each other. As a result, human input is still required at many stages in the production process, and solving problems can require manually examining data from multiple disparate systems.
In smart manufacturing, technologies are integrated to create an intelligent, self-adjusting ecosystem. For example, sensors in a smart factory gather information from networked manufacturing equipment throughout the shop floor. All that data is centralized and combined with information from other sources, such as current orders and demand forecasts. Advanced analytical techniques — including machine learning — can then be used to gain new insights from vast amounts of aggregated data, flagging potential problems before they occur. By analyzing data from image sensors, for instance, a machine-learning algorithm can automatically identify defects and initiate adjustments to production processes to compensate for a problem. Similarly, low inventory or spikes in demand can automatically trigger procurement of new raw materials.
In short, a smart factory not only curates and analyzes data, but it also actually learns from experience to forecast trends and events, and self-optimize workflows and automated processes.