July 202019MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY INSIGHTSBy Haresh G. Malkani, Ph.D, Chief Technology Officer, CESMII - The Smart Manufacturing InstituteOne of the first questions I often get from colleagues, peers, and audiences is "I have heard of Smart Phones, Smart Cities, Smart Cars, Smart Buildings ­ but what exactly do you mean by Smart Manufacturing?" How you explain, Smart Manufacturing depends on the context in which the question is asked and who is asking it. However, at a fundamental level, Smart Manufacturing is essentially getting the right information, at the right time, in the proper form, with the right technologies, to the right people to enable them to make the right decisions ­ for a unit process, a linked production flow path or the entire supply chain. It is not that manufacturing, in general, has NOT been smart. We have been using the building blocks of Smart Manufacturing for decades in manufacturing operations - sensors, advanced control, analytics, and predictive modeling. Numerous manufacturing organizations have been developing and deploying innovative solutions that range from real-time sensing to model-based predictive control. However, these solutions have typically been isolated in their respective islands of excellence. The flow of information across these solutions is CXO INSIGHTSMAKING Manufacturing Smarter
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