IT is enabling all the Industries. See how IT is being used for the next generation manufacturing as
discussed in Part 1 here. Now we'll see how Smart Technologies enable other Industrial & Manufacturing processes.
Smart Supply Network By using technology to monitor its entire supply network, an international consumer-goods company has enabled better supply decisions. This application of technology will reduce the number of jobs in operations planning, while creating demand for supply chain coordinators to handle deliveries in smaller lot sizes.
Machines as a Service A German compressor manufacturer sells compressed air as a service instead of selling the machinery itself. The company installs a compressor at a client?s site and maintains and upgrades the equipment as required. In addition to fostering job growth in production and service, this business model requires manufacturers to expand their sales force.
Self-Organizing Production A producer of gears has designed its production lines to automatically coordinate and optimize the utilization of each asset . Although the use of this type of automation will reduce the demand for workers in production planning, it will increase the demand for specialists in data modeling and interpretation.
Additive Manufacturing of Complex Parts Techniques such as selective laser sintering and 3-D printing enable manufacturers to create complex parts in one step, eliminating the need for assembly and inventories of individual parts. New jobs in 3-D computer-aided design and 3-D modeling are being created in R&D and engineering, while jobs are being lost in parts assembly.
Augmented Work, Maintenance, and Service Workers at a German logistics company use augmented-reality glasses to see dispatch information and navigation instructions, including the exact location of an item on a shelf, and to automatically scan bar codes. The system is also designed to enable remote assistance with basic maintenance tasks and provide customer-specific packaging instructions. The use of augmented reality is significantly increasing process efficiency for service technicians, while requiring companies to build extensive new capabilities in R&D, IT, and digital assistance systems.
