The digital revolution is in full swing, and businesses everywhere are undergoing mass digitization.
What does that look like on the factory floor?
Digitization has been well underway for a while now. In the last few years, businesses everywhere have sought to enter the online and very global marketplace.
To do this successfully, they need a website, which is why there is a huge trend toward SEO and enhancing websites.
How Digitization is Changing the Factory Floor?: eAskme |
Everyone wants to be better than their competitors.
Not everyone can take up those top three spots under Google answers – but it doesn’t stop us from trying. To try is to go with the digital flow.
Nobody denies this mass digitization and what it resembles.
For now, the migration online is a virtual one, not a physical one.
So, when it comes to large-scale buildings whose task lies in manufacturing, how does that digitization affect them?
A mechanical arm must not upload itself onto the World Wide Web to work.
It does not need an email address and is not at risk of having its job replaced just yet.
How does digitization transfer to the factories and warehouses in the real, non-virtual world?
Introducing Industry 4.0:
We are in the center of the fourth industrial revolution.
That is correct: that wave that saw people pushing forward with coal and steam back in the 1800s is washing over us again.
Introducing Industry 4.0: eAskme |
This time, instead of gas and electricity or the invention of the internet, it is bringing digital means with it.
It is not just that businesses are getting online for the first time; the number of automated business processes has risen.
It means the introduction of machinery and tech that can do the jobs of humans so that humans do not have to.
As you can imagine, this type of technology always gets a mixed reception.
The modern war cries that machines are stealing our jobs is misleading.
Yes, a new checkout that works through fully virtual means does take away the job of the cashier.
However, it gives work to the designers and technicians who created it.
It gives work to the software programmer who wrote the code for it and the installation people who came to put it there.
It continues to provide work for the member of staff who must fix it every time it breaks, too.
Digitization on the Factory Floor:
Here are common pieces of equipment that are helping factories and warehouses make the switch to digital systems.
Conveyor Belts:
The old factory conveyor belts were one long piece of rubber stretched taught over shifting mechanics.
The new ones are intuitive and responsive, and you can program them using a computer.
Installing custom conveyor systems in factories means switching from standard rubber to programmable tech.
Cobots:
The expertly named cobot is a co-worker in bot form.
Usually, they perform a single task, but you can program them for other things.
A cobot looks a little like a digital arm with a screen attached.
Program them to pack for you, assemble on the line, or check quality.
AI:
Although we are not at the stage of placing an AI inside a robotic body, there are automated processes that an AI tool can handle.
Email sorting, intuitive reading of the goods during production, and even answering calls are all good examples of AI at work.
If you still have any question, feel free to ask me via comments.
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