The most attractive thing about digital transformation is that it moves rapidly—and slowly—all simultaneously. The trends we observe on the horizon for Industry 4.0 in 2020 are a lot similar like trends that we’ve seen increasing and revolutionizing over the last few years. The difference isn’t so much in the technology, it’s in the number of companies beginning to use it, and the reasons why.

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Technologists have been talking about the huge IoT benefit for manufacturing, literally, for years. But it’s not just the technologists it’s the manufacturing companies themselves identifying the very big impact of connecting one’s work and processes to the IoT. It’s also the ever more demanding customers who yearn for higher quality goods, often with responsible manufacturing practice, right now this very moment. If there’s one thing that’s clear, it’s that manufacturers will be facing increasing pressures in cost, efficiency and quality in the coming decade. And they’re finding that new tech adoption—be it IoT, 5G, AI, enterprise resource planning, or VR/AR training—is the only way to carry on.

Here are some of the biggest technologies continuing to develop in 2020, and the causes behind it.

IoT: Less I and More AI

Can we all be pleased about the fact that we’ve (mostly) dropped the extra I from the IIoT? Increasingly, digitization isn’t occurring by industry—it’s happening universally. The IoT used in manufacturing partially covers at numerous points with IoT in retail, consumer goods, healthcare, and just about everything else. Actually, the continuing interaction of all those paths of data and connectivity are giving extremely important insights that are altering the way manufacturing is being run. Furthermore, we are seeing a union of AI and IoT, with a number of companies like SAS Software flaunting AIoT as the next wave for IoT based upon Gartner’s prediction of more than 80 percent of IoT projects surrounding AI.

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For example, the IoT assures cost savings. It helps supply insights on procedures, costs, productivity, etc. But simultaneously, it’s also supplying data about the supply chain—the quality of parts and products being utilized, where they came from, and how they were grown, bought, or formed. Increasing number of customers are demanding that the things they buy are manufactured judiciously. And manufacturers—not just brands selling the products being manufactured—are being held accountable for those details thanks to the IoT.

According to research by MPI Group, not quite 70 percent of manufacturers credit the IoT with increasing their profitability. Research shows manufacturing companies will invest some US$267 billion by 2020. Clearly, they’re starting to get the message that the technology can provide incredible value for them. Another notable data point is that 90 percent of manufacturing companies in the United States today have fewer than 500 employees, according to the National Association of Manufacturers. Will they have the ability to spend in, and support employees conversant of, the IoT? It’s questionable. And it may be the one thing that reasons small manufacturers to drop out of the digital transformation game in total.

Predicting The Whole Lot

Research illustrates an hour of downtime can liken to US$100,000 in losses in a manufacturing setting. By means of data, AI, and predictive analytic, some state manufacturers can decrease planned outages by 50 percent. IBM declares it can even diminish unplanned outage by 15 percent. Predictive analytics aid companies better understand about their machine work, and their failure, which lets them to check those failures in total.

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In reality, manufacturers are now working in an environment that is full of risks and indefinite—how will the market vary? How will it be disturbed? Where will their business take them, geographically? Can they get partners in those areas that supply to the same level of promise to quality as they do? With so many global variables nearby, predictive analytics can assist manufacturers make better, faster, smarter, and less risky decisions about everything from machine maintenance to supply chain optimization, all of these impacts customer experience; from the quality of goods produced to when customers obtain orders.

5G

Indeed, we’re at last hitting an age when 5G will perform a role in recovering (diminishing) latency, offering high bandwidth, and permit for reliable real-time communication on a huge scale. With 5G, manufacturers can start to enhance their use of sensor, cloud, quality inspection, centralized tracking, etc., creating an “ecosystem” of smart manufacturing. Yes, we may observe a rising difference between 5G have and have-nots in 2020 (much like IoT). But it will certainly play a larger role in smart manufacturing pushing ahead.

The large trends in the digital transformation of manufacturing will be completed with technology like 3-D printing that will persist to let companies to make faster, cheaper prototypes while AR and VR will maintain to permit for better, safer training across the board. These aren’t actually new trends, but somewhat areas of constant improvement for manufacturing.

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It’s vital to also repeat the rising connection of customer demands that will play a much more important role in altering manufacturing for the better in the coming year than those technologies themselves. Nowadays, each company is here to serve the customer irrespective of their distance from the customer they may have worked before. Transformational trends like the (A)IoT and 5G will force them to do that much more in the coming decade.