The advent of Industry 4.0 has brought a revolutionizing transformation to the shop floor. This incredible digital transformation in manufacturing market has enhanced and modernized the whole manufacturing process thereby pushing its efficiency to a whole new level. In factual terms, this digital transformation in the manufacturing industry is expected to register a CAGR of over 15.59% during the forecast period 2019 - 2024. Moving at both a speedy as well as a moderate pace, it has been driving shop floor performance higher and production costs lower while eliminating discrepancies and ensuring higher transparency.

So far 2019 has seen a flurry of technological advancements being integrated by the manufacturing sector in the form of IoT, 5G, AI, enterprise resource planning, or VR/AR training. This trend continues to grow as digital transformation in manufacturing keeps reshaping and redefining shop floor activities.

To understand what the forthcoming year holds for the manufacturing market in terms of digitization let us take a look at the trends expected to carry forward the unstoppable growth:

IoT or Internet Of Things

Digitization is flowing through every industry while amalgamating both hardware and software with the internet and making way for a more technologically driven tomorrow. A study by Gartner predicts that by the year 2020 there will be almost 20.4 billion IoT devices. Successfully implemented in the manufacturing field, it is optimally suited in an environment where speed in creation and quality are the deciding factors for a product’s success. IoT is instrumental in ensuring cost-effectiveness while providing the manufacturers with insights on processes, productivity, cost savings, etc. IoT performs a multitude of applications for the manufacturers. IoT devices monitor development cycles of the products, manage warehouses as well as keep a track of inventories. Digital transformation enables visibility of operations throughout the organization, and not just within the plants, but also around the world. Thus, the ease of shop floor management and enhanced work efficiency has driven manufacturers to incorporate IoT into their businesses.

Also, research indicates that manufacturing companies are expected to invest about US$267 billion by 2020!

Predictive Analysis and AI

Incorporation of AI in manufacturing has been a game changer for the industry. It was observed that about an hour of downtime can lead to hundreds of dollars in losses. Manufacturers are of the opinion that using predictive analysis and AI data they can reduce the planned outages by almost 50% and through production monitoring system increase work efficiency. Predictive analysis enables the manufacturers to understand the working of their machines better including the issues occurring with them. Thus, they can prevent such issues that may create outages. Apart from operational improvement, with the help of high performing software tools, AI can enable them to design and maintain their own algorithm and intellectual property. This proves to be quite cost-effective as well as versatile with the changing market conditions.

Moving Towards a Digitized 2020

We are moving into the era of 5G. It is expected to improve latency while providing high bandwidth and allow reliable real-time communication on a wider scale. Not only that, technological trends such as 3-D printing will enable companies to make faster and more economical prototypes. AR and VR will make way for more efficient and safer training across the board.