Industry outlook 2024: The renaissance of smart machines for the factory of the future

As always, there are the ever-present pressures of quality, cost and performance as we enter 2024. At the same time, sustainability requirements are now front and centre. The focus is on lowering energy usage, reducing carbon and minimising scrap and waste.

In addition, larger global trends are impacting manufacturers around the world, while social-political shifts are also leading to changes in business models – including reshoring, servitisation and new market entrants. They also see opportunities in emerging areas, moving from well-established domains into adjacent or new markets.

For example, paper machine manufacturers are expanding into battery machine manufacturing to meet the sharp rise in demand for electric vehicles, the same can be said for machine builders in the glass industry. However, workforce shortages – both for machine builders and manufacturing operations – are increasing the need for automation. The factory of the future is now developing around the paradigms of sustainability, flexibility and the future workforce.

Advances in technology are providing opportunities for manufacturers to thrive, despite the industry’s myriad of challenges. These new capabilities are made possible by the greater intelligence and wealth of data generated by digitalisation, which integrates digital tools, systems and IoT data, connecting previously siloed information across design, engineering, production and service.

With digitalisation, manufacturers can move beyond automation to more predictive and adaptive production environments. Adaptive manufacturing delivers the flexibility to enable effortless switching of production with changing market and customer needs. Moreover, it simplifies the workflow systems so manufacturers can do more with the same workforce.

Digitalisation lowers manufacturing risk by creating more flexible processes and accessing crucial data across the many engineering and production disciplines. Weaving the data from all these once-siloed disciplines requires solutions built on an in-depth understanding of machine design, simulation, factory automation and project lifecycle management (PLM).

Digital twin: the core of digitalisation

This renaissance in manufacturing requires digitalising the entire lifecycle of the production process including the production machinery — and it begins in design by creating the digital twin of the smart machine. Throughout the design process, the machine’s digital twin is developed based on multi-disciplinary engineering that encompasses the machine’s mechanical, software, electrical and automation systems.

This digital twin is initially used for design exploration and evaluation in virtual prototyping. Once the machine is ready for deployment, the digital twin of the machine enables virtual commissioning before the machine is physically installed, allowing for machine familiarity and operator training – significantly minimising the risk and time needed for deployment.

Once installed in the factory, the machine’s digital twin is continually enriched with data from actual operations across the machine’s lifetime. This benefit creates a closed loop between the real and digital representation. With increasing fidelity, this operational digital twin delivers invaluable performance insights, enabling the manufacturing team to continually monitor and improve manufacturing efficiencies and quality.

The digital twin improves operational reliability, managing the machine’s service lifecycle management by providing data and insights on when a machine needs maintenance, helping to eliminate unplanned downtime or machine damage. It can also accelerate new product introduction, with the manufacturing team test-driving potential processes before committing to physical changes on the shop floor.

Transforming manufacturing with a digital thread

Once digitalisation is implemented, it reveals whole new horizons for manufacturing. Robust digital twins of discrete machinery can integrate into a digital thread that extends from the individual machines to factory layout and design, then into manufacturing operations.

Plant-level simulation allows us to simulate across machines, automation processes and production lines, continuously optimising speed and quality. Manufacturers can optimise the overall plant performance, starting with planning and then across ongoing operations. The result is a smart factory where data is seamlessly accessed and shared throughout the entire operation.

The enablers are substantial in areas such as sustainability, production flexibility, and labour-shortages:

• Sustainability with energy management: Manufacturers can confidently perform a complete plant energy evaluation, optimisation, CO2 reduction and report within a plant or even across global operations.
• Production flexibility: True IT/OT convergence is feasible, connecting and analysing data across the supply chain, factory operations, and business processes, allowing data-driven decisions in near real-time.
• Human machine collaboration with artificial intelligence/machine learning and data analytics can be deployed – including data from powerful industrial edge capabilities. Access to better insights enables quick response to unanticipated events leveraging. Also, leveraging generative AI for operational analytics (e.g., Siemens Industrial Copilot) will allow users to rapidly generate, optimise and debug complex automation code, and significantly shorten simulation times. This will reduce a task that previously took weeks to minutes.

Furthermore, the emergence of a digital thread greatly minimises risk when converting or modifying the line to adapt to fluctuating market conditions. As we continue to connect the physical world with the digital, cyber security must be prioritised and integrated into every step of digitalisation.

The complexity of cyber security risks and threats continues to increase and spread over larger digital and geographic spaces. The quality of data and product cyber security has never been more important.

Start small and scale smart

For all the many benefits of digitalisation, taking the first step can be intimidating. The question I hear from manufacturers customers is: “Where do I start?” Fortunately, manufacturers can start small and then scale when ready. The recent advent of industry-cloud solutions built purposefully for machine builders and manufacturers makes it more convenient than ever before. These are ideally suited to emerging markets and regions as well as reshoring.

At Siemens, we have mapped out the five stages of digital maturity (below) to help customers determine where to start. First, we do a digital maturity assessment to establish where a specific manufacturer is on this continuum. Then, we look at what industry leaders in the same industry have successfully deployed. The next step is to create a roadmap for the manufacturer, enabling a new era in manufacturing.

Most machine builders today have embraced the first two stages of this maturation process. These stages are configuration, moving from a document-based to a model-based data framework and connection that encourages the sharing of data across siloes.

These two stages significantly improve the traceability and accessibility of data throughout the organisation, helping to increase process efficiency, improve engineering flexibility and enhance results even on aggressive project timelines. However, to reap the full benefits of digitalisation, machine manufacturers are adopting automation in their design practices leading to greater levels of generative design and eventually closed-loop optimisation.

For example, Tronrud Engineering of Norway builds and delivers flexible and innovative packaging machines to customers nationally and globally. With over 40 years of experience, it has delivered secondary package solutions worldwide and optimised the next generation of a packaging machine that packs pillow bags into boxes. Using Siemens support, especially with building a digital twin, it has achieved impressive results: “We have reduced the design phase by about ten percent and the commissioning phase by around 20-25%,” said Tor Morten Stadum, PLM Manager at Tronrud Engineering.

Start the transformational journey now

With digitalisation, machine builders can confidently embrace an innovative future. They can move from automation to adaptive manufacturing and establish a digital thread across their operations. This transformation will help manufacturers thrive in today’s dynamic environment, adapting to unforeseen shifts and changes as we move further into this exciting renaissance in manufacturing.