MARKET OVERVIEW
AUTOR: MILTON D'SILVA
THE SMART FACTORY: AN OVERVIEW The smart factory is still a work in progress, but the building blocks are already in place. A report.
5G plays a central role in the Bosch vision for the factory of the future. Picture: Bosch
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couple of years ago, a technocrat from a leading automation vendor, chatting on the side-lines of an industry event made an interesting observation. “A factory manufactures products, but that is not the purpose of the factory,” he said. “The purpose of a factory is to make profits.” Implicit in this assertion is the role technology plays in making those profits. It started with the very first Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th century powered by steam,
02 - AUTOMATION Mag - OCTOBER 2020
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and continues with the Industry 4.0, the fourth version – unleashed by the Internet and facilitated by cyber physical systems in the new millennium. Each of these revolutions brought in tremendous advantages in terms of transportation, telecommunications, access to raw materials, exploration of resources, etc., and led to large scale manufacturing of industrial and consumer goods, gadgets and appliances
