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Manufacturing is a $12 trillion industry globally, and new technology promises to usher in what experts are calling the fourth industrial revolution.
Internet of Things-based technology harvests data from all the machines in a factory and transfers it to the cloud where artificial intelligence uses the results to make the factory more efficient, reliable and profitable, the Wall Street Journal reports. The end goal is to integrate data into real-time decision making, but that’s still a long ways off.
Today, many manufacturing execs admit the greatest challenge isn’t bringing in new technology but simply figuring out how to connect legacy equipment. Still, advances are being made and newly built manufacturing plants are increasingly robot-operated, with employees only necessary to fix broken machinery and oversee the process. [WSJ]
