Digital manufacturing and IoT technologies can bring huge value to manufacturing companies. By successfully moving away from inflexible supply chains, outdated machinery, and other rigid processes, manufacturing companies can dramatically increase productivity and efficiency with smarter tools and solutions, and through closer connections and data. Sharing mechanisms improve interoperability.
Looking at the application of new technologies throughout the industry, as well as the development and improvement process of the technology itself, we find that there are three important trends that are reshaping the entire industry.
Trend 1: Increase productivity through connected IoT infrastructure!
With the help of advanced machine learning, artificial intelligence, digitalization and other technologies, manufacturing companies have achieved rapid changes in recent years. However, before manufacturers can take full advantage of IoT technology, there is still a lot of potential for such changes to be realized.
For example, modern industrial technology can help manufacturers control production models and huge supply chains more granularly, but with the help of intelligent infrastructure driven by IoT technology, manufacturers will be able to further obtain more detailed information for each link of the production process. Granular visibility so you can better optimize production cycles, predict customer needs and optimize energy allocation.
Trend 2: Reshaping of the role of manufacturers!
In the past, manufacturers had to track and monitor multiple variables throughout their operations in order to optimize operations and ensure everything ran smoothly. However, as today’s manufacturers face increasingly complex environments and larger scales, it is difficult to continue to do all this in real time. Fortunately, the tight integration of artificial intelligence and IoT technology into production processes allows manufacturers to gain deeper insights into what is happening in the factory.
Trend 3: Use digital technology to create new business opportunities!
For enterprises, how should we understand the concept of “digitalization”?
“Digitalization refers to the use of digital technology to innovate business models, thereby obtaining new revenue sources and various opportunities that can generate more value.”
For example, the development of cyber-physical systems, robots, collaborative robots (Cobot) and 3D printing technology has made digital manufacturers more agile. When these technologies are combined with smart business applications that create more digital connections across the entire value chain through IoT infrastructure, manufacturers will be able to identify even more transformation opportunities. For example, manufacturers can combine IoT data with big computing to create digital twins of equipment, products, and processes to gain new insights into customer needs, accelerate the delivery of new products and services, and improve the speed and efficiency of the supply chain. .
Traditional manufacturing companies are transforming into digital platform providers, which may be the most eye-catching development result of digital technology. Although smart technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive maintenance, and mixed reality have brought a lot of practical benefits to the manufacturing field, many companies have not adopted these technologies due to reasons such as the cost of IT infrastructure. But as more and more manufacturers begin to build their own digital platforms to support their own networks of IoT devices, they will gradually realize that they can further monetize related investments, thereby venturing into new markets and providing innovative solutions to other industries. products and services.
These trends are transforming manufacturers that are embracing IoT technology into software companies with new revenue streams. The transformation driven by IoT technology is reshaping the entire manufacturing industry. Microsoft will, as always, provide unremitting support to enterprises in transformation through advanced products, services and solutions.