In-line for an automation upgrade
Author : Phil Nicholas, General Manager
30 March 2020
Smarter, flexible and more functional, Industry 4.0-enabled automation is more accessible than you think. Phil Nicholas, General Manager of Ewellix UK Sales, dispels some myths about factory digitalisation.
There is a digital revolution underway in manufacturing. When companies think about their digital strategies, it is easy to get caught up in the complexity. Factory managers worry that they will have to rip out their existing infrastructure and start again from scratch. Or they think that they will need to add layers of additional hardware and software to handle communications and data analysis.
There’s plenty of evidence that big Industry 4.0 projects can deliver significant benefits, but there’s another way to think about digitalisation in the factory environment. Industry 4.0 also makes it cheaper and easier for companies to introduce new, digitally enabled approaches from the ground up – improving the performance and flexibility of the machines they already use and automating a wider range of tasks. In fact, “front-line” applications of new digital approaches are likely to be one of the fastest-growing areas of industrial technology, with the global market for factory automation products forecast to grow at an annual rate of 9 percent over the next five years.
Read the full article in the April issue of DPA.
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