The top 10 use cases on the basis of their overall impact on the workforce and the degree to which new skills would be required to complete the related tasks in Old Economic Industries are as follows,
Big-Data-Driven Quality Control A semiconductor company uses algorithms to analyze real-time or historical quality-control data, identifying quality issues and their causes and pinpointing ways to minimize product failures and waste. The application of big data in manufacturing will reduce the number of workers specializing in quality control, while increasing the demand for industrial data scientists.
Robot-Assisted Production A plastics producer uses robots that are similar to humans with respect to their size and hands and that can be easily trained to take on new tasks. Safety sensors and cameras allow the robots to interact with their environment. Such advancements will significantly reduce the amount of manual labor in production operations, such as assembly and packaging, but
create a new job?robot coordinator (which we describe later).
Self-Driving Logistics Vehicles A food and beverage manufacturer has deployed automated transportation systems that navigate intelligently and independently within its factory, thereby reducing the need for logistics personnel.
Production Line Simulation A consumer products manufacturer uses innovative software to simulate production lines prior to installation and applies the insights to optimize operations. Implementation of this technology will increase the demand for industrial engineers and simulation experts.
Predictive Maintenance A wind turbine manufacturer offers its customers real-time remote monitoring of equipment and 24-7 access to a diagnostic center. Alarms are automatically generated if one of the vibration-monitoring sensors in a turbine indicates that an abnormality has occurred. Monitoring and sensor technologies will allow manufacturers to repair equipment before breakdowns occur and will foster a significant increase in jobs associated with system design, IT, and data science. These advancements will also create a new job?digitally assisted fieldservice engineers?while reducing demand for traditional service technicians.
