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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.

Rapid prototyping is a staple of every designer and engineer’s workflow—essential for testing new concepts, verifying designs, and meeting increasingly aggressive time-to-market goals. Regardless of the industry or product, all engineers must consider the speed, accessibility, cost, and output of these additive manufacturing equipment.

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.

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

Manufacturers of all sizes see an uptick in productivity after adding a factory within a factory via an automated machining cell. The cells are small-scale, clearly defined production units, often for a family of similar parts or a product, and they typically include a robotic arm and one or more machine tools.

Put the paper and pencil away. Hybrid data management and analysis systems-where users combine paper tracking with computer processing-are no longer meeting the needs of manufacturers for speed, accuracy, traceability and compliance with regulations.

Wyoming Completion had a shock when it began machining parts in an automated machining cell. It was a good shock: While the company hoped for a 25-35% boost in production, it experienced 400% improvement.

As I walked the floor this spring at North America’s largest trade show for automation technologies, Industry 4.0 was on everybody’s lips. One of the more complex of our industrial revolutions, Industry 4.0 has been about the Internet of Things: digitizing and connecting things.