When the ergonomics team at General Motors decided to field test wearables to augment their plant workers’ physical abilities, they partnered with body mechanics experts who collect data in a scientific way—and talked with users.

Inside an electronics factory in China as late as early 2019, workers and smart machines were building circuit boards with chips in a multi-step process using a variety of machines from different vendors.

Innovation in smart manufacturing can come in a flash from a lightbulb moment, but those instances are few. More often than not, breakthroughs in technology, such as bioprinting, blockchain, cloud-based manufacturing and real-time production control, happen after years of careful study accompanied by painstaking, methodical work done sometimes in academic settings.

Although the first iteration of 5G technology has offered limited use cases in manufacturing, the next two generations, now expected to be available in the fall of this year and then the fall of next year because of COVID-19-related delays, will help factory owners achieve greater digital transformation of their factories.

Factory safety is not a theoretical issue for Gabe Glynn, CEO of the wearable tech firm MākuSafe.

The figurative skull and crossbones marking the tech-demo and -validation period commonly called the “valley of death” are in the rearview mirror, MxD CEO Chandra Brown asserts.