By Mr. Dhawal Gupta, Co-Founder of Subhot Enterprises
The manufacturing trends of 2024 are all in service of the manufacturers’ ongoing efforts to overcome obstacles, enhance procedures, and find efficiency. Trends in the manufacturing sector are primarily influenced by business goals, market demands, and technology advancements, as is the case with most industries. In the near future, the COVID-19 pandemic will still have an impact on manufacturing, therefore some of these tendencies will persist. However, there will also be new opportunities and difficulties. The manufacturing themes that have shaped 2024 from worker safety to company flexibility and the necessity of adjusting to a possible “new normal”, for a significant part, a reaction to the particular difficulties of the past few years. Technology’s continuous advancements in connectivity and automation will likely continue to solve issues and create previously unattainable opportunities.
The top -5 manufacturing trends for 2024
- The continued rise of smart factories
Manufacturing facilities and factories are about to cross a line into the adoption of smart factories, going from frequently or occasionally implementing smart equipment to fully functional systems that fully utilize data analytics and communication between machinery and central monitoring tools. Why? Considering multiple factors:
- Newer machinery is being phased out with older equipment, and they have onboard sensors and monitoring tools.
- Manufacturers will be more and more driven to adopt smart technology to stay up with rivals who are beginning to reap the same benefits.
The benefits of smart factories, such as more insight into process efficiency, lower overall operating costs, and more proactive and effective maintenance, are becoming more and more evident as the costs of aftermarket sensors as well as software and equipment continue to decline.
2) Virtual processes and artificial intelligence
By enabling remote monitoring, servicing, and equipment operation without the need for on-site presence, technologies like digital twins, machine learning, AI (artificial intelligence), AR, and VR (augmented reality and virtual reality) are helping manufacturers become more productive and efficient. Virtual and remote operation is in line with other contemporary manufacturing advances that provide access, flexibility, and safety, as connectivity gets closer to real-time and processing power allows for the illusion that the operator is in the same room as the machine. In reality, the creation of fully automated factories, or “dark factories,” has been facilitated by this technology.
3) Shifting the emphasis to B2C from B2B
Rebuilding consumer interactions is becoming possible for many corporations due to technological advancements and improvements in supply chain methods. Nowadays, a lot of manufacturing businesses offer their goods directly to customers via e-commerce and other channels, cutting out the middlemen like retailers and wholesalers. This ongoing change from B2B to B2C should only become more common in the upcoming year, as more consumers than ever shop online.
4) Workplace health and safety
Employee safety is always the top priority and is frequently seen more as something that should be monitored and promoted daily than as a “trend.” As a result, new approaches of tracking and preserving employee health have been adopted, which is beneficial to both your staff and your company. For the purpose of assessing the risk of diseases and injuries, some organizations are opting to use more sophisticated equipment to track staff movements, locations, and even temperatures.
5) Supply chain analysis
The initial global supply chain disruption of 2020 made headlines and brought home how unstable the regular norm has been for almost every facility and organization in the years that followed. It appears that in 2024, facilities will continue to look to the supply chain for innovative methods to maintain value while adding flexibility and reliability, making it an area of ongoing monitoring, management, and improvement. One such tool is data, and data-driven inventory management is a useful technique for locating previously undiscovered supply chain efficiency. Manufacturers may reduce the unpredictable and ever-changing nature of supply chain interruptions by using data to help them adjust more quickly to these changes.