Share this blog
A number of technological trends are poised to drive the long-term direction of the manufacturing industry. Some of these trends are already impacting manufacturers today, while others are expected to become more and more prominent in the years ahead. As a result, it’s crucial for companies to grow in their awareness of these tech trends, how they will evolve, and what their effects will be in both the near and distant future.
Let’s take a look at five poised to disrupt manufacturers’ businesses:
1. The ever-evolving Internet of Things (IoT) is allowing manufacturers to improve operational efficiency, increase workplace safety, develop smarter and more innovative products and spark transformative organizational change.
Manufacturers today are readily embracing new and cutting-edge ways to engineer and develop equipment, and many have found ways to successfully embed software into their product offerings.
Incorporating the Internet of Things into innovation activities is no small task, but a greater number of manufacturers are beginning to see the value in taking advantage of the numerous benefits to to be gained. They include:
And as the industry grows increasingly comfortable with the Internet of Things, expect to see manufacturers begin to bring their product offerings to scale with significantly greater ease. The technology has arrived. Now the onus is on companies to invest in it and leverage it to its full advantage.
2. While augmented reality is a technology that’s still very much in its infancy, it’s now being used in a number of manufacturing-related applications.
If manufacturers are successful in their efforts to find practical and useful applications for augmented reality, the ways in which the industry does business could fundamentally be transformed in the not-too-distant future.
The technology — which allows virtual reality graphics to interact with the physical environment, from a user’s perspective — shouldn’t be dismissed by manufacturers as a futuristic technological gimmick. It’s simply the next step in the ongoing evolution of how people interact with computers.
Within the next three to five years, experts predict mixed reality technology will become more common in corporate settings, followed by a tipping point of adoption by consumers. Current use cases include sales, marketing, engineering and design. After that? It’s really anyone’s guess, but augmented reality’s potential for disruption in the manufacturing industry remains sky high.
Credits: AEM