Frost & Sullivan Reveals How the Lights-Out Setting is Changing the Manufacturing Industry

According to Frost & Sullivan's recent analysis on lights-out manufacturing, the rapidly falling cost of robotics and constantly rising labor expenses will drive manufacturers' shift to a lights-out setting. The production process is entirely automated in a lights-out environment, with minimal human involvement needed to operate day-to-day operations. By switching to a lights-out operations model, companies can maximize their human capital and save up to 20% on labor expenses while increasing productivity output by 30%. Furthermore, they can meet their sustainability and zero-carbon emission targets by conserving energy during production hours. Automotive, general manufacturing, electronics and electrical components, and logistics and warehousing are four key sectors anticipated to make rapid development toward a fully automated lights-out environment in the near future.

A lights-out manufacturing process can unleash many possibilities with a long-term vision, a digital-first approach, and a highly-skilled human workforce, including:

• Rise of micro-factories: This will be driven by moving toward decentralized structures and automated manufacturing processes, requiring a smaller workforce and less space, energy, and resources.

• Grid manufacturing: By adopting operational customization as a business strategy, companies will accomplish mass customization through cyber-physical systems and computational advancements driving intelligent automation.

• Manufacturing-to-zero-as-a-service: To provide industrial optimization with a zero-based value proposition, an integrated strategy that uses all core "zero" technologies is needed.

• Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) platform: Building a collectively intelligent IIoT platform requires ensuring a seamless transfer of information among interconnected stakeholders.

Transformative Mega Trends Enabling Lights-Out Manufacturing is the most recent addition to Frost & Sullivan's TechVision research and analyses, which are available through the Frost & Sullivan Leadership Council and assist organizations in identifying a continuous flow of growth opportunities to succeed in an uncertain future.

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Frost & Sullivan has been world-renowned for its role in assisting investors, corporate leaders, and governments in navigating economic changes and identifying disruptive technologies, Mega Trends, new business models, and companies to action, resulting in a continuous flow of growth opportunities to drive future success for over six decades.