High-tech manufacturing has been through numerous challenges in the last decade—while also discovering some incredible technological advancements to overcome obstacles like supply chain disruption, global shortages, and changing customer landscapes. Looking beyond the last ten years into the next five, Deloitte reports that “a striking 86% of surveyed manufacturing executives believe that smart factory solutions will be the primary drivers of competitiveness in the next five years.”
But what is a smart factory and how can you start to build or enhance yours?
What is a smart factory?
Gartner describes a smart factory as “the application of different combinations of modern technologies to create a hyperflexible, self-adapting manufacturing capability.” Also known as a digital factory or intelligent factory, a smart factory can be any factory that utilizes cutting-edge technology to create efficiencies, predict future issues, or eliminate redundancies. The best smart factories use a combination of tools and technologies to accomplish seemingly impossible tasks.
Smart factories aim to help manufacturers overcome these common challenges:
- Large volumes of data, often dozens of petabytes annually
- Data quality issues
- Scattered data across multiple sources
- Lack of collaboration on tools or limited technology resources
Spotfire + your smart factory
Spotfire® visual data science powers smart factories with a more integrated approach than traditional business intelligence. The Spotfire platform’s industry-specific customizations combined with data preparation and exploration in one single platform, eliminates the need for other tools and increases analytics collaboration across teams.
The Manufacturer notes, “By adopting tools like Spotfire, manufacturers can shift from reactive to proactive process management, improving efficiency, productivity, and decision-making across all areas of operation.”
Hear from industry experts
Learn more about the future of high-tech manufacturing from Spotfire experts featured on The Manufacturer. This article dives deeper into manufacturing use cases and viewpoints of the industry as a whole—as well as an overview of visual data science.
Want to learn more specifically about Spotfire® for Manufacturing? Check out our latest TAF webinar on high-tech manufacturing.