Currently, the manufacturing industry is transitioning towards full automation, with terms such as industrial automation and smart factory appearing. In modern large-scale manufacturing, many links have been automated, requiring little human intervention. Industrial automation is an inevitable trend to meet modern needs, benefiting from the promotion of relevant policies of governments and the development of emerging diversified economic markets.
The growth of this market is mainly attributed to the continuous development of technology. Key technologies include industrial Internet of Things, robotics, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, cybersecurity, new materials and material manufacturing, as well as modeling, simulation, visualization, and virtual technologies.
1. Industrial Internet of Things
The Industrial Internet of Things is to continuously integrate various acquisition and control sensors or controllers with perception and monitoring capabilities, as well as mobile communication, intelligent analysis and other technologies into all aspects of the industrial production process, thereby greatly improving manufacturing efficiency, improving product quality, and reducing product quality. Cost and resource consumption, and finally realize the upgrading of traditional industries to a new stage of intelligence. In terms of application form, the application of industrial Internet of Things has the characteristics of real-time, automation, embedded (software), security, and information interoperability and interconnection.
The Industrial Internet of Things uses relevant information to complete basic tasks through tablets, smartphones and other devices. For example, companies can use data analysis to change their business to a more streamlined and adaptive way to achieve long-term or short-term goals. Thanks to this hyper-connectivity, all departments can respond faster and increase the agility of various operations.
Not only do smart devices excel at capturing and analyzing data in real time, but they are also more accurate and time-sensitive when it comes to important information that drives business decisions. As such, the Industrial Internet plays a huge role in quality control, traceability, sustainability, overall supply chain efficiency, predictive maintenance, asset tracking, improved field service, enhanced customer satisfaction, and facility management.
2. Robotics
A robot is a machine device that performs work automatically. It can accept human command, run pre-programmed programs, and act according to principles formulated with artificial intelligence technology. Its mission is to assist or replace human work in jobs such as manufacturing, construction, or hazardous jobs.
The concept of robots in the world has gradually converged. Generally speaking, people can accept this statement, that is, a robot is a kind of machine that realizes various functions by its own power and control ability. The United Nations Standardization Organization adopted the definition of a robot from the American Robotics Association: "A programmable and multifunctional manipulator; or a specialized system that can be changed by a computer and programmed to perform different tasks." It can be used for Human beings bring many conveniences!
As more brick-and-mortar factories become smarter and more efficient, robots will take on a bigger role in manufacturing. And with the advancement of robotics, these machines can exhibit more complex and excellent functions, including machine learning and memory, higher flexibility and more effective collaboration capabilities. Robots have been recognized as an essential part of manufacturing, and their presence has brought unimaginable advantages.
3. Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence, the English abbreviation is AI. It is a new technical science that studies and develops theories, methods, technologies and application systems for simulating, extending and expanding human intelligence.
Artificial intelligence is a branch of computer science that attempts to understand the essence of intelligence and produce a new intelligent machine that can respond in a manner similar to human intelligence. Research in this field includes robotics, language recognition, image recognition, natural language processing and expert systems, etc. Since the birth of artificial intelligence, the theory and technology have become increasingly mature, and the application fields have also continued to expand. It can be imagined that the technological products brought by artificial intelligence in the future will be the "container" of human wisdom. Artificial intelligence can simulate the information process of human consciousness and thinking. Artificial intelligence is not human intelligence, but it can think like human beings and may surpass human intelligence.
Artificial intelligence technology has already appeared in our daily life in the form of driverless cars and industrial robots. Technology in manufacturing applications may become the new standard for analyzing large amounts of data and performing predictive maintenance.
Artificial intelligence will have a huge impact on manufacturing and automation. For example, AI algorithms can be used to optimize manufacturing supply chains, thereby helping companies predict market changes; they can be searched by location, weather patterns, consumer behavior, political status, social economy and macroeconomics. Factors, etc. are linked together to estimate market demand.
4. Big data
Research firm Gartner has given such a definition, "big data" requires a new processing model to have stronger decision-making power, insight discovery and process optimization capabilities to adapt to massive, high-growth and diversified information assets.
Big data requires special techniques to efficiently handle large volumes of data that tolerate elapsed time. Technologies applicable to big data, including massively parallel processing (MPP) databases, data mining, distributed file systems, distributed databases, cloud computing platforms, the Internet, and scalable storage systems.
Manufacturing is the most complex industry in terms of variety and depth of products. Businesses that use big data in manufacturing can address global development challenges such as opening new factories in new locations and shifting production to other countries.
The way we store and capture data is changing every day, so new standards for sharing, transferring, updating, searching, visual querying and information privacy emerge, and manufacturing companies need to adopt more powerful technology to keep pace with the new data, so The emergence of enterprise resource planning (ERP) plays a vital role in the business development of enterprises.
5. Cloud technology
Cloud technology is a general term for network technology, information technology, integration technology, management platform technology, application technology, etc. based on cloud computing business model applications. It can form a resource pool and be used on demand, which is flexible and convenient.
Cloud technology is an emerging technology. Because it is not maintained locally, it cannot be stored, monitored or protected using traditional methods. However, because it allows remote and more effective real-time collaboration with it, cloud-based technology may become the future of the company. main mode of operation.
One of the advantages of cloud technology is that cloud computing is faster, reduces maintenance and improves manageability compared to traditional data systems. For example, the cloud computing ERP in the SaaS mode allows customers to pay service fees on demand according to different combinations of factors such as the number of concurrent users, the number of functions used, data storage capacity, and the length of use, without paying software license fees or purchasing hardware equipment such as servers. There is no need to pay for the purchase of platform software such as operating systems and databases, no need to bear the cost of software project customization, development, and implementation, and no need to bear the expenses of the IT maintenance department. In fact, cloud computing ERP inherits the license-free cost of open source ERP. The most important feature of service-only fees is the ERP product that highlights the service.
6. Network Security
As more and more enterprise operations move to cloud-based solutions and rely more heavily on robotic workforces, maintaining the integrity and security of the systems will become an even bigger concern. And as more and more manufacturing companies simultaneously build and integrate their systems through the Industrial Internet of Things, there will be more loopholes for information security threats.
Moreover, manufacturing companies are the backbone of the continuous progress of automation, so in an increasingly insecure digital environment, they urgently need to improve security.
To address these vulnerabilities, manufacturing and other industries are taking a close look at cloud-based ERP systems. And over time, businesses of all sizes will rely on cloud-based ERP systems. Perhaps in the future cloud-based security is one of the important components of the functionality of modern ERP systems. However, dealing with the security of cloud-based ERP is a challenging and complex process.
7. Advanced materials and additive manufacturing
Additive manufacturing, better known by the more general name of 3D printing, is an emerging advanced manufacturing technology. 3D printing can now build large and complex structures in less than a day, a process that used to take weeks to complete.
The use of new special consumable materials is the main development direction of additive manufacturing (such as 3D printing), which is easier for metals, but relatively difficult for high-strength alloys, ceramics, and nanoceramics.
Today, additive manufacturing has the potential to provide manufacturing companies with new complex design and production capabilities, enabling manufacturers to produce customized products and deliver products faster.
8. Modeling, Simulation, Visualization and Immersion
Manipulating, analyzing and utilizing data is very important when discussing the development of any manufacturing business. Businesses can leverage new technologies to more effectively represent and predict scenarios through new forms of modeling, simulation, visualization, and interactive immersion.
Some innovative techniques, such as modeling, immersive tools, and visualization, are used in many businesses that rely on big data, including science, manufacturing, healthcare, energy, and finance, among others.
These innovative displays are not only data, but also an effective way to help the team develop technology and improve the success rate of tasks.
With the development of the times, the support of various governments, etc., we have reached the next milestone of a revolutionary industry. The industry connects emerging technologies with established trends between manufacturing automation and data exchange, and is committed to bringing network systems into the mainstream and placing them at the forefront of manufacturing, so it is also called the fourth industrial revolution .
And with modern technologies being conceptualized and realized, Industry 5.0 has emerged. Based on the support of smart devices, the ability to process and access more data continues to improve, and our factories will become more productive, more efficient, and more energy-efficient, and finally enter a new era.
