The needs and whims of the market are always changing, and manufacturing isn’t immune from that. Over the last few years, the rise of AI and digitization have exploded in new and interesting ways. In manufacturing, regardless of product or procedure, AI and digitization have begun creeping their way in, and as an industry leader in your local or regional territory, you should be aware of these changes. Today, we’ll take a look at how these new changes in manufacturing can help or impact your business.

Smart Manufacturing: The Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet of Things (IoT) can be described as a network of physical devices, such as industrial machines. This network of machines all work together to gather and report data for analysis. This is important for manufacturing, where productivity and efficiency are incredibly important.

Applications for the IoT in manufacturing include:

• Predictive maintenance, using sensors and software to determine when a machine might need critical repairs and upgrades.
• Real-time monitoring of production lines, ensuring that output of manufactured goods meets productivity standards.
• Stock analysis and streamlined supply chain management, making planning shipments easier to manage and more accurate.

Ultimately, the IoT can help your business reduce downtime, enhance overall resource management, and offers managers and quality control personnel with more data to make more informed decisions.

Digital Twins Technology

“Digital twins” technology has been around for a long time under various different names. NASA was one of the first to implement this kind of technology, and in more recent years, it’s become more viable for all sorts of businesses.

The concept of digital twins describes the use of virtual replicas of physical processes, systems or products for testing and simulation. Essentially, digital twins are used to as a trial run for new processes before trying them out on your actual equipment.

By using digital twin technology, you can simulate new production workflows to identify bottlenecks, test new product designs to reduce risk of failure or injury, and monitor performance and troubleshoot issues that arise.

Upskilling Your Workforce

With changes in manufacturing coming from AI, robotics, and data analysis, your team’s skills should also level up to compete with those changes.

Your first objective should be getting your existing workers caught up. Train them in these specialized areas to help them understand the new processes and how to run data analysis and simulations.

Next, focus on attracting top talent with existing skills, either to fill in gaps or train your existing workers. Top talent comes and stays when they are properly compensated, offered competitive benefits, and shown a clear path for career development.

While exploring some of these changes and incorporating them into your business can take time, the end results will be worth it. Your company will remain competitive, productive and efficient, and you’ll gain peace of mind. Now all that’s left is maintaining your workforce, and we can help with that. Contact Tempstar Staffing to learn how!