Efficient Plant March 2018 - 6

column | editorial

Disrupting
The Future
Gary L. Parr
Editorial Director

Industry 4.0/Internet of Things technology is at
the core of almost all of the disruptive trends
that are taking hold in the near future.

6

| EFFICIENTPLANTMAG.COM

D

ISRUPTION WAS THE
topic of a recent conversation. What stayed with me
was a curiosity about developments/
trends that are and will change manufacturing. One of the results of my
search for answers was an article from
Disruption (disruptionhub.com) titled
"18 Disruptive Technology Trends
for 2018." The European magazine
popped up because I was looking for
disruptive trends from that part of the
world. These days, European businesses tend to operate at the leading edge
of technology. Most of the 18 trends are
not relevant to manufacturing. Here's
what article author Rob Prevett had to
say about six trends that do apply.
Mobile-first to AI-first: A major
shift in business thinking has placed
artificial intelligence (AI) at the very
heart of business strategy. Companies
are demonstrating a willingness to
use AI and related tools, like machine
learning, to automate processes, reduce
administrative tasks, and collect and
organize data.
Huge growth in the as-a-service
model: The growth of the as-a-service
business model has resulted from changes in corporate and consumer needs. For
businesses, as-a-service solutions cut
costs by simplifying IT infrastructure.
Between 2016 and 2020, the global XaaS
(anything as-a-service) market is forecast
to grow by 40% each year.
Steps toward Industry 4.0 and the
factory of the future: The installation
of smart sensors and the application
of data analytics will deliver further
steps toward the factory of the future.
The wider use of automated processes
powered by AI, advanced robotics, and
Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity will

contribute to realizing the ambitions of
Industry 4.0.
Improved decision making with
prescriptive analytics: The emergence
of smart-data discovery capabilities,
machine learning, and the automation of
the entire analytics workflow is enabling
organizations to handle vast amounts
of information. Smart-data discovery
capabilities, in particular, are driving
huge advances in how we understand
unstructured and dark data.
Growing interest in digital twins: A
digital twin is a simulation model that
updates and changes in accordance with
real-world assets to enable better decision making and improve understanding
of the state of systems. Digital twins will
provide businesses with the ability to
respond to changes, improve operations
and add value to IoT.
Spatial computing that augments
the real world: High-quality augmented
reallity (AR) and mixed reality are here.
Advances in augmented and mixed-reality technologies will see an explosion
of commercial applications way beyond
entertainment. (Learn more about what
lies ahead for AR and virtual reality
(VR) on p. 10).
While these trends, individually,
paint an interesting picture for what lies
ahead, collectively they have an even
stronger message: They can be acquired
and implemented by manufacturers of
all sizes and at all levels, and they even
the competitive playing field in ways
we have not seen very often. XaaS is an
interwoven thread in all of these trends
that allows small operations and/or
those with limited resources to tap into
disruptive technologies without a major
up-front investment. EP
gparr@efficientplantmag.com

MARCH 2018
http://www.disruptionhub.com http://www.EFFICIENTPLANTMAG.COM
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Efficient Plant March 2018
