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DEAR LOGISTIC MANAGEMENT READERS:
Over the past decade, three major driving forces have accelerated advancements in smart manufacturing. First is the emergence of Industry 4.0. Industrial companies have been developing and formulating their own industrial digital transformation to ensure their competitiveness. The automation and machine to machine communication of previously manual and labor intensive tasks have reduced OPEX while increasing output and overall revenue. Second, due to the current pandemic, switching to technology driven solutions has become a necessity to alleviate the ongoing pressures from labor shortages, an aging workforce, and rising labor costs amplified by inflation. Third is to address pent up demand and lack of capacities due to government lockdowns and supply chain disruptions.
Huan Trang, Advantech’s iLogistics Sales Director, pointed out that manufacturing in the past focused on lean and justintime production processes, emphasizing cost reduction, waste elimination, and increasing efficiency of the entire organization through customer demand driven processes. Today digital and AI data collection technologies provide fundamental benefits that deliver commercial value through the immediacy and accuracy of information, driving rapid responses and decisionmaking. Many manufacturers who have progressed through Industry 2.0 (Automation) and Industry
3.0 (Information Technology) are now preparing to move toward Industry 4.0 (Industrial Internet of Things). Thus, their needs have moved gradually from a single point of automation toward more comprehensive smart applications.
Mr. Trang explained that singlepoint operation problems are caused by IoT fragmentation resulting from information silos. In a competitive landscape, the major pain points manufacturing faces include supply chain preparation, dynamic budget planning, and business KPI progress. To counter these challenges, manufacturing needs to reshape its business thinking. What opportunities and new directions will their transformation uncover? What systematic approaches will shorten their learning curve, reduce the cost of failure, and create a return on their investment in digital transformation?
With deep knowledge on the three major trends driving future industrial developments in smart manufacturing, Advantech curated products that help empower manufacturers and customers to implement sustainable business models. In addition to optimizing production capacity and return on investment, these solutions also provide new value added services for equipment providers. With technology constantly evolving, the acceleration toward smart manufacturing is not only inevitable but a necessity. Along this path, Advantech continues to be a key player and driver of smart manufacturing through close collaboration with manufacturers moving towards Industry 4.0 and beyond.
Sincerely,
Huan Trang
Logistics Sales Director
iLogistics@advantech.com