February 18, 2020
The world of product development, manufacturing and production is changing. With Industry 4.0 we’re on the brink of a new dawn of automation and intelligence, with smart, connected products and the smart factories that produce them.
Autonomous drones capture progress as a new production cell layout is commissioned. Deep Learning-enabled devices with computer vision perform quality checks on the production line and provide data to continually improve processes. Intelligent, collaborative robots, “aware” of their environment, work alongside humans to assist with assembly tasks.
Advanced computing devices harvest huge amounts of data from products in the field to feed design and simulation systems and help ensure that next-generation products learn from those that have gone before.
Virtual reality (VR) presents everyone in the development process with the information they need in a rich, immersive, and collaborative environment. Ultra-powerful workstations are used to design, simulate, and visualize products, production cells, and factories. Then, once manufactured, virtual products— or “digital twins”—can be connected through the Internet of Things (IoT) to their real-world manifestations.