How Manufacturing Companies Can Leverage Technology
The manufacturing industry has faced tremendous technological advancements. Most of these developments aim to save production costs, speed up the process, improve quality, and make working conditions safe for employees.
This post will discuss four types of technologies used in large manufacturing firms. Moreover, we’ll examine how these technologies have improved efficiency and productivity to satisfy customer demand, guarantee the quality, and drive growth.
Mobile Technology
In 2017, studies showed that only about 60% of manufacturing companies still utilized pens and paper to track necessary manufacturing processes. Whereas 50% are either using computers on the wheel or simple spreadsheets.
However, those figures have since abruptly shifted upwards. For example, by 2021, only 21% of manufacturing companies were still using old tracking methods.
This was due to more manufacturing companies (over 65%) gradually conducting machine tool automation in their production cycle—many started using rugged business tablets or handheld mobile PCs.
Manufacturers may now put business-critical programs and data at the fingertips of their employees thanks to these gadgets. These devices also greatly enhance their barcode scanning capabilities, which automate the tracing of raw materials and finished products.
As a result, workflow efficiency and tracing accuracy have dramatically increased, which speeds up product production, helps satisfy customer demands, and opens up new order options.
Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS)
Consumer expectations and quality criteria are pushing businesses to provide more information about the origins of raw materials, features, and final items.
This has resulted in many firms in the manufacturing industry adapting real-time location systems (RTLS).
RTLS is generally driven by RFID (radio frequency identification) and offers several advantages. Manufacturers, for instance, may collect vital information on nearly every item that goes through their supply chains, such as its origin, staging, status, and quality.
This transparency gives managers actionable information to make more informed decisions, plan and stage production, eliminate the requirement for extra inventory, and adopt supply chain efficiencies that result in improved order fulfillment and increased customer happiness.
The ability to trace, find, and isolate materials, components, or products in the case of a fault or recall is critical for quality control.
Wearable Manufacturing Technology
There are many ways that wearable technology can help boost efficiency on the production line or in the supply chain operations in general. For this, more firms are gradually implementing wearables, and the numbers are expected to increase drastically.
For instance, hands-free pallets, packages, and merchandise screening are made possible by wearing band scanners and mobile devices. As a result, picking, verifying, and moving things across the warehouse will be much more efficient for everyone involved.
The same technology can be used at the packaging phase to confirm correct order selection and error-free the packaging process.
Ultimately, these enhancements to selecting and packaging allow for a faster, more effective, and more accurate delivery of orders.
Voice Direction and Recognition
More companies are increasingly adopting voice technology in their production process.
An excellent example, in this case, is the TekSpeech Pro, which is a tool that allows you to control voice-directed processes easily, from coding dialogue to integrating the host, deploying, and managing the solution. All the parts work well together so that the effectiveness and voice quality are unmatched.
It gives warehouse employees audible selection instructions, alerts of right and wrong selections, and the ability to do further voice-directed workflows and automate processes.
Using speech recognition technology, workers can activate automated systems and communicate with corporate systems by just speaking orders into a microphone.
Interoffice Communication and Buyer Collaboration
Software selection and deployment for ERP projects help you focus on other important things while your computers take care of other staff. Strive to reduce using manual and outdated processes by automating workflows and lead generation and offering easily accessible, Internet-independent sales materials.
Your sales force can succeed, for instance, by utilizing cutting-edge office products like Cisco and Microsoft.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Microsoft Skype for Business
Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Office 365
Microsoft Teams
Cisco Jabber
Cisco Webex
Bottom Line
Manufacturing companies must adopt new ways to remain relevant. Digital strategies speed information to the proper individuals, fostering consumer intimacy. The manufacturing workers will learn new skills to speed up industry 4.0 initiatives—the data for sophisticated analytics and AI.
While the current recession threatens manufacturing enterprises, it allows them to adopt innovative technology from other industries. We must think outside the box to make manufacturing safe in the next decade.