But with a growing skills gap and vacancies becoming more difficult to fill, improving factory automation is becoming increasingly important for companies hoping to increase profits and productivity, and gain a competitive edge. ABI Research suggests that organizations without a digital transformation strategy are already falling behind their competitors.
As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, we were able to witness first-hand how a global health crisis can place unforeseen demands on an entire industry. By watching how these unexpected market changes and challenges affected businesses, it’s clear that the manufacturing sector must become efficient and agile enough to rapidly increase production and pivot to support different products. With inevitable personnel absences—during the pandemic and otherwise—highly automated production lines in 5G smart factories are a key part of the solution as the organizations aim to navigate the crisis without unnecessary loss of output.
Another benefit of 5G smart factory automation is that it has the potential to enable manufacturers to boost throughput, lower operating costs, and increase their return on investment. Along with enhancing productivity, factory safety and product quality could also improve, thanks to better traceability of parts data as well as tighter process control, which could ultimately reduce failures while boosting reliability and repeatability.