Today’s assembly plants are undergoing a major evolution, as Industry 4.0 technology is rapidly being adopted across many industries. This technology will form the foundation for a next-generation vision of manufacturing: the factory of the future. This new factory is an intelligent, flexible and highly agile production environment that equips plant operations and management personnel with real-time, in-depth information to maximize the value and performance of every machine and production unit.
Although the factory of the future may sound like a lofty concept, the groundwork for implementing this vision has actually been in place for some time. One crucial foundation in the journey toward the factory of the future is the concept of lean manufacturing. Developed decades ago as a method to improve productivity, lean manufacturing emphasizes eliminating waste, implementing continuous improvement and improving the flow of material, people and information—both within individual production lines and across manufacturing enterprises.