Top 5 Exciting Trends in Manufacturing That You Need to Know

If you’re a manufacturing company, you can read about the latest manufacturing industry trends right here. It’s recommended that you follow and engage with these trends so that you can build for the future and improve your manufacturing processes.

Global manufacturing is booming — and it shows no sign of slowing down. In just the United States, the value added in the manufacturing market is projected to reach US$3tn by the end of 2023, which is huge.
So, whether you manufacture tech equipment or apparel, it’s important that you stay on top of the latest manufacturing trends so that you can continue to thrive in an industry that’s going to experience even greater growth over the coming years.

Like most industries, trends can come and go. However, some trends are worth paying attention to, as they stick around and have a long-term impact. This is certainly the case with the five exciting manufacturing trends discussed in this guide. Let’s waste no more time and dive straight into them.

The Use of Air Compressors

The manufacturing industry has quickly become reliant on air compressors. This is why almost every manufacturer on the planet has at least one air compressor on-site.
When it comes to what air compressors actually do in manufacturing, it varies. Here are a few of the most popular examples:

Pressure testing components
Moving products
Drying products

It’s guaranteed that you (the manufacturer) can benefit from using an air compressor (or multiple air compressors) during the manufacturing process. You can click here to find out more about what air compressors can offer you and where you can buy them.

Automation

For decades, people have been talking about how “robots will take over” in the future. Interestingly, this has sort of started to happen in the manufacturing industry — but it’s nothing to be concerned about. In fact, it’s very good news for manufacturing companies, as automation means that you can now automate lots of different manufacturing tasks that previously had to be done manually by employees.

Now, robotic automation is extremely common in production lines. Robotic automation can be used for various tasks, with one of the most common ones being product packaging (which is where the machinery takes the products and puts them into packaging without any manual input from human employees).

Over the coming decades, the requirement for humans in manufacturing plants is expected to plummet as automation becomes the norm.

5G

In an era where IoT devices play a big role in manufacturing, 5G technology is going to take the manufacturing industry to the next level.

Already, 5G has slowly started to emerge in manufacturing, with many manufacturers having already upgrades to it. As a result, they’ve gotten to experience high-speed manufacturing with a much greater potential for flexibility, as there’s now a reduced need for wired connectivity.

It’s important to remember that that demand for data is skyrocketing in manufacturing. Thankfully, this is something that 5G will be able to cope with, while also enabling:

Better control of automated robots
Improved end-to-end tracking of good
More reliable production monitoring

Essentially, there’s a lot to love and very little to dislike about 5G. As soon as possible, you should make the jump and implement 5G throughout your manufacturing unit.

Digital Twin Technology

An exciting trend over recent years has been the emergence of digital twin technology.
This is exactly what the name suggests: a digital twin is the digital representation of a physical manufacturing object. It can then imitate the specific object’s lifecycle and simulate its behavior from beginning to end. As a result, you get to experience benefits such as:

Understand how an object or asset will behave
Identify potential faults that will emerge (so that you can fix them ahead of time)
Make smarter decisions

The predictive capabilities of this technology are scarily accurate, which is why it’s highly recommended that your manufacturing plant takes advantage of it. You’ll be able to save untold amounts of money and ultimately prevent lots of potential breakdowns and faults in your manufacturing line.

Sustainability

Sustainability has become a big topic of discussion in the manufacturing world in response to the rising problem of climate change. Some – but not all – manufacturers have reacted by implementing sustainable practices throughout their organization. For example, they’ll take any waste materials from manufacturing, put them into bales, and then sell them to recycling companies. This way, the manufacturer gets to make a profit, and none of its materials go to waste.