Smart Manufacturing is a smart choice no matter who you are or what you're manufacturing. But, if you're running a High Mix/Low Volume operation and competing with products produced in so called "low cost" countries it's not only smart, it's almost essential to your survival.

Global automotive supplier IFA Group makes driveshafts and other components for cars, trucks, tractors and industrial machinery. The company has assembly plants in Germany, Poland, China and the United States.

There are plenty of "dumb" systems out there which can press parts together. Pneumatics and hydraulics have been used to do just this for longer than most of us have been alive. Human operators, while not dumb, present problems of their own.

The future of manufacturing and more particularly flexible assembly solutions will be driven by advances in control technologies and control strategies. Smarter, flexible manufacturing cells are the goal.