Smart Industry 1/2019

Smart Lifestyle Smart Factories
Smart Factories
Value First
The smart factory offers an inexhaustible range of technical opportunities –
but manufacturing companies cannot start using every possible
technology all at once, and not every technology is suitable for every
company. The starting point should not be the
technologies but the goals.
n By Antony Bourne
86
be tested in the form of “what-if” scenarios.
This enables manufacturing
companies to optimize their basic
workflows and to adapt to new orders
coming in at the last minute, or
to plans changing at short notice, in a
much more flexible way.
Networking also provides them with
the chance to improve quality and security
on the shop floor by using senables
manufacturing companies,
and others, to increase transparency
in their workflows, in turn allowing
them to make their processes more
efficient and increasing their agility.
For example, using a “digital twin,”
built using IoT data, allows a virtualized
manufacturing workflow to be
displayed digitally in real time and
planned changes to processes can
Creating a smart factory
provides manufacturing
companies with a cornucopia
of technologies and
associated opportunities. First and
foremost, this includes the networking
of machines, plant, and other
equipment with IT systems using
sensors and the Industrial Internet
of Things (IIoT). This network en-