The Factory of the Future - Zebra Technologies

A practical guide to harnessing new value in manufacturing.

How manufacturing sourcing, supply chain management and production operates today.

With around $900 billion of waste in global manufacturing supply chains*, it's clear there's scope to cut costs dramatically and create new value. As manufacturing regains favour with economic and political stakeholders worldwide, progressive enterprises are exploring ways to work more efficiently using asset information, system integration and process innovation.

There are, of course, the on-going challenges:

• Product and supply chain complexities are unavoidable.

• Rising raw materials and energy prices require constant monitoring and reassessment.

• The global marketplace is defined by aggressive competition and pace of activity.

The shift from capacity to capability:

To streamline operations, manufacturers are looking to measure success based on production capability and flexibility rather than efficiency and production capacity. The trend is to move away from a make-to-stock manufacturing approach and mass production, and embrace more of a quality-driven, make-to-order approach to meet defined and specific customer needs. As a part of this shift, plant floor staff are becoming more 'knowledge workers' than operators, not only having a technical understanding of the machines they run, but also having the analytical and decision making skills to make adjustments to machine operation to support the most efficient means of delivering the products required.

Topics covered in this Guide:

• The shift from capacity to capability

• Living lean

• Wasted data

• Strategic big data

• The Internet of Things

• Actionable analytics

• Integrated ecosystems

• The virtual plant floor

• The benefits of barcodes

• RFID

• RTLs (Real Time Locating Systems)

• How and where to use AIDC

*Source: IDC Manufacturing Insights

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