Smart Manufacturing Business and Technology Practice

Smart Manufacturing (SM) uses the integration of next generation Operations Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) to realize significant untapped market opportunities. Opportunities accrue from a broader, more customized product space and accelerated dynamic, and precision manufacturing, drawing upon the cumulative impacts of every step across entire enterprise value and supply chains. Significantly increased energy, material and workforce productivity and improved environment sustainability are pathways to opportunities as well as outcomes of enterprise optimization. Smart Manufacturing (SM) is a term of ‘practice’ to just technology. It is in what way, at what speed, and how well data and next generation IT are applied that impact the future of individual manufacturers and their supply chains. Smart Manufacturing (SM) is therefore the opportunity-based and business oriented application of next generation advanced sensors, controls, platforms and modeling. Building meaning through a lens of practices that orchestrate capabilities to achieve business and operational objectives makes it possible to describe SM itself as set of practices that distinguish it from today’s 40 year history of applying IT to manufacturing.