Much has been discussed about Smart Manufacturing, or the use of the Industrial Internet of Things in manufacturing environments. But it seems everyone has a different opinion of what that actually means. In this post, I want to make an attempt at defining what a Smart Factory is.
As I see it, there are five components to a Smart Factory, and all five must be met to some degree before a production operation can be considered truly smart. If you want to rate how smart your factory is, read the descriptions and give yourself a score of 0 to 5 for each of these categories: Smart Equipment, Smart Processes, Smart Operators, Smart Suppliers, and Smart Distribution.
Read Gordon Benzie's Smart Manufacturing blog post and see how your factory ranks in automation.
