Today, we’re confronted with a need to drastically change our industrial practices. As a result of globalization, markets are always growing, but investments remain limited. This means more production using our existing assets. Manufacturers absolutely must find drivers of productivity.
Conversely, manufactured products are becoming more and more complex due to greater richness and diversity. Manufacturers are therefore caught in a vice between productivity and complexity, and if nothing is done, this dual pressure turns into problems with quality, product maintenance, and logistical breakdowns.
The virtual world of the future factory must allow us to break out of this restrictive framework and reach a higher level of productivity and anticipation. Creating models for our industrial operations won’t be what allows us to anticipate problems. We will achieve this through confronting this virtual model and the reality of execution using real-time data from the field.
