What is behind Advanced Manufacturing?

Douglas Pedro de Alcantara, Chief Technology Officer at ROMI S.A

Advanced Manufacturing (AM), also known as Industry 4.0, is more than just a collection of technologies designed to help manufacturers maintain their leadership in the face of new competition. It is a strategic initiative aimed at promoting the informatization of manufacturing and the integration of data.

Three key concepts that drove the development of AM are:

Differentiation

One of the concepts that drove the path to advanced manufacturing was the search for differentiation, to the eyes of users, of products and services they would consume.

Taking the automotive industry as an example, new automotive manufacturing plants would be designed to meet an increased responsiveness capacity instead of a high production capacity, i.e., companies could produce cars to customer specifications and respond quickly to changes in demand. 

So, the differentiation had to be achieved without putting too much pressure on the production costs, using flexibilization as a key trend.

From the customer's perspective, they would receive something that almost meets their requirements as a tailor-made product, which seems exclusive.

Flexibilization

Flexibilization of processes became a very important concept and helped drive the path to the AM. To be able to adapt its manufacturing processes and its workforce to meet customer demands was also something that would propel the need for new concepts in the production processes. 

Being more flexible in production also means that the product must be designed in such a way that it becomes easier to, through flexibilization, achieve a certain level of differentiation in the eyes of the consumers.

For example, a Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS), a common computer-controlled system in manufacturing companies, allows industries to produce with minimal downtime. You can reduce the costs of small production batches in the manufacturing processes by taking the setup time out of the production time of a given part.

From the customer's perspective, they would feel that their needs were met more quickly, almost as if someone knew what their wish would be much before, with no extra costs. 

Servitization

Shifting from selling products to offering services related to those products has also been a trend in the manufacturing field that must be addressed in the AM discussion. Originally in the software world, SaaS for Sofware-as-a-Service, the acronym “aaS” or “as-a-Service” became very popular: PaaS (Product-as-a-Service), MaaS (Machine-as-a-Service) and others can be easily heard in the industry.

Selling a service instead of the product will increase the revenue per customer and help build stronger relationships with them. You will be able to know much more about the customer experience and pains. The manufacturer that can shift to servitization will differentiate itself from the competition and achieve higher customer loyalty.

“Advanced Manufacturing is a strategic initiative aimed at promoting the informatization of manufacturing and the integration of data.”

An example of such servitization would be a machine-tool manufacturer offering rental services of their machines and training services and how to better them, all from big data of the machinery used through connectivity.

Again, from the customer's perspective, they will face reduced costs of ownership and operation, better uptime, and productivity. They can always have the newest product and technology and count on expertise and support from the manufacturer. So, their risks related to the product will be reduced.

What would connect Differentiation, Flexibilization, and Servitization?

Technologies that would be the basis for differentiation, flexibilization, and servitization were put together to form the new digital industrial technology trends resulting in the AM. See figure.

These three concepts are interconnected. For example, AM technologies can help manufacturers produce more differentiated products, leading to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. AM technologies can also help manufacturers to make their production processes more flexible, which can help them to respond more quickly to changes in demand and customer requirements. And AM technologies can help manufacturers to shift from selling products to selling services, which can help them to build stronger relationships with their customers and increase their revenue.

The so-called Industry 4.0 requires the integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) in manufacturing processes. Most of those technologies are used to form a Cyber-Physical System (CPS). The CPS is characterized as a system that integrates physical and computational components to monitor and control the physical processes seamlessly.

CPSs offer advantages over traditional systems–more efficient, reliable, and so on. The winning aspect of such a system is the characteristics of collecting, analyzing, and improving the decision-making process, sometimes acting on the physical. CPSs are, however, more complex and vulnerable to cyberattacks. That's why a lot of cybersecurity is also part of new technologies for AM. Relating to all the connectivity technologies and the need to result in something more different and flexible, a few other new technologies have been added to support the changes: additive manufacturing, augmented reality, automation, and simulation. 

In conclusion, AM is driven by the needs of new types of customers. Customers demand more differentiated products, flexible production processes, and value-added services. AM technologies enable manufacturers to meet these demands and create a new industrial revolution.