By: Arup Ghosh, AVP & Markets Lead- India, ANZ and ME – Industry 4.0 NxT

Industry 4.0: At the Forefront of Innovation

Industry 4.0 is driven by the global trend of leveraging digital technologies for improved automation, optimization, efficiency, responsiveness, and asset productivity.

Manufacturers are now hopping onto this digital transformation bandwagon with a vision to create smart factories backed by fully integrated digital threads. A key aspect of Industry 4.0, such smart factories rely heavily on embedded software, robotics, advanced sensors, machine learning, and real-time data for better decision-making.

Other Industry 4.0 technologies being explored by manufacturers today to optimize production facilities and operations include the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), digital twinning, cloud computing, analytics, and cybersecurity. To crunch some numbers, the global market for IIoT is expected to grow in size to more than USD 1 trillion by 2028.

Manufacturers are harnessing IIoT in concert with some other Industry 4.0 technologies. With up to 25% increase in manufacturing productivity by using IIoT to monitor machine utilization, let’s take a look at some of the other ways in which manufacturers are using IIoT technologies to improve their processes.

Training for Worker Safety

Virtual reality (VR) can create immersive learning experiences by recreating real-life settings and challenges. It facilitates learning by doing, where employees get hands-on experience and on-the-job training in a simulated environment without compromising on employee safety. In addition to this, augmented reality (AR) adds interactive digital elements to a live view of the real world, which means that it can be used to create training sessions that are more engaging and provide much more feedback.

These technologies can thus be used to onboard new workers, accurately replicate rare disaster scenarios, and provide training on complex, multi-step tasks.

Sales Forecasting

Sales forecasting and inventory management can be radically transformed through AR and VR. These technologies can help uncover the factors triggering consumer purchase behavior, enabling improved sales and better marketing strategies. For instance, customers may be allowed to interact with 3D versions of products or teleported to virtual stores. The feedback obtained by doing so can also help speed up product development.

Logistics forecasting

Industry 4.0 aims to leverage sensors, advanced analytics, AI and ML to improve demand forecasts. In particular, AI/ML optimizes forecasting by considering current trends, historical data, and digital media insights, resulting in accurate demand and supply forecasts, operations flexibility, optimized profits, and an enhanced customer experience. Moreover, inventory management, fleet management, and supply chain management all become smoother as a result.

Tracking and traceability

Visibility into complex supply chains reduces disruptions, lowers costs, and increases customer satisfaction. It also empowers professionals to identify and fix supply chain defects. Industry 4.0 enables manufacturers to rely on IIoT, RFID, AIDC, BLE beacons, and similar track and trace systems to ensure product quality, compliance management, and even warranty and expiry management.

Digital Transformations with NxT

Built on advanced Industry 4.0 capabilities, the NxT platform makes digital transformation more accessible to global organizations, helping them unlock game-changing business potential and achieve competitive differentiation.

NxT leverages its domain-wide expertise in the manufacturing, engineering, construction, mining, logistics, and utility industries to create sustainable and innovative solutions that ensure increased safety and productivity, optimal asset utilization, better supply chain management, and an enhanced customer experience. It also enables businesses to evolve their processes and products, and to make operations digitally agile with leading-edge technologies, including IIoT, AI/ML, digital twinning, AR/VR, vision analytics, and edge/cloud computing.

Solutions based on NxT have had a huge business impact on several major organizations across industries. For instance, they helped improve night shift productivity at a client’s construction sites by 2.5 times, and managed to capture more than 10,000 instances of non-compliance at another client’s sites.
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