Optimizing Manufacturing and Production Processes

whitePaper | January 9, 2023

Modern manufacturing theory, tools, and best practices are focused on how to make thousands or millions of identical parts or products at a low cost per unit. Custom and low volume production pose unique challenges that require manufacturers to adapt from typical mass production models. Thanks to the rapid development of technologies and materials over the last decade, additive manufacturing has grown more capable as a true manufacturing tool and can now enable the fabrication of these custom and low volume end-use parts rapidly and cost-efficiently. This white paper presents Formlabs 3D printing hardware and material solutions for end-use part production. It documents various users' case studies and includes stress testing results to verify the suitability of 3D printing materials for end-use applications.

whitePaper | December 1, 2022

Printed circuit assemblers need an IoT ecosystem, the cornerstone of Industry 4.0. One of the key advantages of an IoT ecosystem is that it can take siloed information, analyze it, and optimize processes across a company’s systems. Aligning IT and OT is key to the Industry 4.0 transformation and to improving manufacturing processes and leads to higher production performance and lower costs. However, it requires effective governance and tools to adapt IT project management models for use in operations.

whitePaper | October 1, 2021

Digitalization is changing how humans live and behave in many ways. It has a huge impact on almost all aspects of society. Just look at manufacturing. Factories have used digital applications for decades, but the impact of a new technological paradigm founded on the Industrial Internet of Things, or IIoT, and realized in the Industry 4.0 concept, is driving the world of manufacturing into a completely different playing field.

whitePaper | March 12, 2023

2022 was a challenging year, with rising inflation, supply chain vulnerability and labor shortages all impacting manufacturers. But which of these factors are companies most concerned by in 2023? And more importantly, how do manufacturers plan to address key challenges to continue growing their business?

whitePaper | June 20, 2022

It is almost cliché that the automotive industry is undergoing transformational change. Perhaps not since the Model T first revolutionized the industry has so much change come so quickly. Driving this evolution is the unstoppable momentum of a Connected, Automated, Shared, and Electrified (CASE) driven digital transformation, which is upending established norms and re-imagining the industry from the inside out. Linear, product-focused business models built on structured data are being replaced by collaborative, data-driven business ecosystems incorporating a broad group of traditional and non-traditional stakeholders and data types. The new value creation frontier is a differentiated, highly-curated, personalized customer experience.

whitePaper | October 23, 2021

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will increase the level of intelligence in the manufacturing industry by promoting, inter alia, the matching of production and demand, improving quality inspection, increasing product yield, reducing product failure rates, and improving production efficiency.1 While the last decade of Industry 4.0 was determined by technology-driven innovation, the coming years will focus on data- and intelligence-driven innovation. In this perspective, AI is an enabler for the transition from smart factories towards intelligent factories with self-optimising and self-healing characteristics. While smart factories are capable of applying previously acquired knowledge, intelligent factories will be able to autonomously acquire new knowledge and apply it for self-optimisation purposes.