Barriers to Industry 4.0 Are Falling Fast

For years, manufacturers of all sizes and across every industrial segment have heard about Industry 4.0. The definition changes depending on the speaker or publication, but the essential idea remains the same. Now that manufacturing has become almost entirely digitized and interconnected as part of what we might call “Industry 3.0,” shops and their suppliers have begun to leverage digital data in new ways, from predictive maintenance powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to scalable solutions designed to power the next generation of data analysis.

While many people tend to describe Industry 4.0 as the future of manufacturing, in reality it has already arrived. OEMs like OMAX Corp. and other major manufacturers, for example, have integrated Industry 4.0 solutions into their own production operations. At many smaller shops, however, the technology remains just out of reach. For that reason, OEMs must look for ways to streamline it and make it easily accessible.