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Manufacturers who have deployed the digital or smart factory have put down their pencils, found new uses for their clipboards and closed their spreadsheet programs in favor of using real-time data gleaned from condition monitoring of their machinery.

Information technology and operations technology are unlikely candidates for a successful marriage. But to ensure that manufacturers thrive in the digital age, OT and IT must find ways to work together—or to at least, as on Tinder, swipe right to indicate interest.

I experienced the end of the Third Industrial Revolution as I began my career in manufacturing. Closed government and private networks gave way to an open network called the Internet.

SHANGHAI—The $150 million “factory of the future” that the Swiss innovator ABB announced nearly a year ago is becoming reality in this enormous city’s Pudong New Area.

Before harmonizing new technology onto the manufacturing floor, critical steps include determining the business problems to be solved and securing buy-in from all stakeholders, industry leaders said recently during an AeroDef conference panel talk on manufacturing production harmonization.

FANUC has made real one of the promises of Industry 4.0, that of predictive maintenance for factory equipment, with its Zero Down Time IoT solution. ZDT can be applied to any of FANUC’s robotic arms and their peripherals.

We all know the buzzwords circulating around digital data and the factory. You have heard them—Industry 4.0, smart factories, data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI). The question we all have is how will this impact workers in the long term? What do these terms really mean? Nevertheless, both traditional software suppliers and makers of advanced manufacturing equipment are offering digital solutions.

For machine shops in a competitive global marketplace, keeping spindles running and making product is the only way to stay in business. Still, adding a new piece of equipment, even with the promise of improving the efficiency of your existing ones, may be a difficult sell to management.

For years, companies have struggled to understand how additive manufacturing (AM) can add value to their businesses. This makes sense because for a long time, additive tech didn’t meet the threshold for producing industrial-grade parts.

With an influx of investment in digital factories, the playing field is changing and the ROI for digitizing production is becoming ever more apparent. However, restraints, such as company size and a disconnect between IT and OT, means the road to a successful digital transformation is one very few will be able to do alone.