The Smart Connected Factory of the Future

Executive Overview
With the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT), Industrie 4.0, Smart Manufacturing, and other new approaches and initiatives, manufacturers have to consider how they design the next generation of smart connected products and the factories that will produce them.

Product designers must now consider an expansion of form, fit, and function to include connectivity and intelligence to be able to leverage the IoT environment. The factories that manufacturer these products, in turn, will have to be designed to take advantage of smart connected devices, machinery, systems, and business processes. In many cases, these smart "connections" will extend well beyond the factory walls to value chain partners.

Suppliers and end users alike will also have to consider the impact on aftermarket services, since the smart connected products, Big Data, and predictive analytics components of the IIoT open up a new paradigm for how manufacturers support their products and equipment via remote di-agnostics, predictive analytics, and visualization "in the Cloud." In some cases, rather than selling and supporting a physical product, a piece of equipment, or software application; suppliers will instead offer the respective functionality "as a service," using the Internet as a delivery mechanism.

Another consideration is that service is the natural result of IoT. Both consumer products and industrial devices that are connected can intelligently communicate their state, condition, or health, so a service can be performed to respond to the communication. This new generation of products will have a significant impact on productivity and effectively reshape the value chain by changing product design, marketing, manufacturing, and after- market service, along with creating the need for analytics and security. These smart connected products will comprise the components that make up the intelligent systems in industry, infrastructure, and business, while at the same time, helping to automate, maintain, and optimize our factories and plants.

While smart connected consumer products are basic elements of the over-all IoT; the smart, connected factory/plant will rely on the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), a subset focused on the unique (and often more robust) requirements of industry and infrastructure.

Table of Contents

• Executive Overview
• The Future of Manufacturing: Smart, Connected, and Autonomous
• Smart Connected Machines Will Drive Smart Connected Factories
• Value Proposition for the Smart Connected Factory
• IIoT and Industrie 4.0: Common Goals for the Factory of the Future
• Recommendations and Conclusions

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Keywords: Internet of Things (IoT), Industrie 4.0, Smart Manufacturing, Big Data, Predictive Analytics, Visualization, In the Cloud, ARC Advisory Group.