Why are we going Back to the Future?

I recently write a post on the Bigfinite Blog titled "Taking Smart Manufacturing Back to the Future", and I wanted to share here as well. It was an attempt to reflect on the "back" part. Not trying to confuse anybody, but many of the concepts that we consider a paradigm shift and transformational have in fact existed for a while. The most common is AI, that has arguably been around for over 60 years and is now becoming pervasive in nearly all gadgets and things. Another lesser known is multi-agent systems which is really at the core of IIoT and collaborative manufacturing equipment, i.e. collaborative robots. As mentioned in an earlier post I got immersed in the everyday grind of work  and only recently realized that these concepts are coming to life, and soon into the main stream.

"Automation has been around for decades so why is this advanced collaboration and self-driving performance important and where is the real value? Well, it has to do with the adaptive behavior that these smart systems can exhibit. Since the process behavior is dynamic and ever changing the, only way to get consistent performance is by having adaptive control. Not only can adaptive control manage the ever-changing nature of the process’ both internal and external factors, but it can also continuously learn, improve and thereby consistently increase performance and quality."

I keep writing about it because I am just giddy with the fact that its happening, the digital transformation is here! Call it what you want, Industry 4.0, Pharma 4.0 or Smart Manufacturing, its here, the future is now - its like going back to the future  that we dreamed about in the late 1990's! This is may passion and it tickles me to see the transformation as it happens in the industry - can't wait.