3 Manufacturing Trends Brought Up by COVID-19 Pandemic Dominating 2021

The ongoing 4^th industrial revolution has taken the engineering manufacturing industry by storm and the way it used to function. Almost everything today is interconnected, automated, and well-stored. The current industry trend has enabled engineering manufacturers to increase operational transparency, diminish costs, expedite production time, and provide exceptional customer support.

However, with the arrival of the new decade, it is time to welcome Industry 5.0 or perhaps it is already here. While the 4th revolution drove the adoption of technologies that optimized production methods, the 5^th will trigger established collaborations of humans and automated systems. However, it is not definite whether or not the 5^th revolution is here but the COVID 19 pandemic has definitely accelerated its arrival.

Here are 3 trends that will bother manufacturing engineering services in order to rule out the competition:

Employee Safety will be Prioritized

Over the years, manufacturing engineering services have focused on workplace safety to assure employees with healthy work-life. However, in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, this factor has witnessed a whole new significance even to those companies who were earlier reluctant to adopt workplace safety. Where pandemic worsens the situations of many industries, it concurrently alarmed manufacturing industry to take basic safety precautions starting from social distancing on the production floor, sanitized workplaces and equipment, and closely monitoring human intervention into facilities. This has driven major engineering manufacturing services to in-source facilities maintenance and management while focusing on traceability which demands reclaiming of internal equipment data from OEMs.

Predictive Maintenance Keeps Production on Track

A slight breakdown in important equipment or tool can cost a manufacturer vis-à-vis downtime, repairs, and loss of productivity. According to recent research, a single hour of downtime cost over $100,000 to a whopping 98% of companies. Therefore, it becomes more crucial than ever for engineering manufacturing companies to ensure all equipment functions are at optimal condition 24*7. To do so, predictive maintenance has proven to be useful that not only reduces sudden failures but also accentuates machinery lifecycle by years. Predictive analytics helps manufacturers to collect data, evaluate, and use for a better understanding of the systems and their probability of outages. Moreover, it helps in optimizing machine performance with the help of performance metrics while automating mundane tasks.

IoT will again be the Big Thing

Even after years of adaptability and modernization, IoT will still play a major role in the coming year. It is all thanks to the internet of things that today half of the population can constantly be in track with the tools or devices they are using. Indeed, the concept or technology isn’t new but COVID-19 pandemic has unfurled renewed the interest to IoT due to its remote monitoring feature and predictive maintenance facilities. Moreover, IoT-enabled devices helped engineers to safely observe machine performance even from a large distance and recognize potential loopholes before a break down even occurs. It also facilitates engineers to gain a comprehensive perception of the problem at hand while resolving it immediately with the potential solutions before they get to the job location.

COVID-19 pandemic has revolutionized the world and the manufacturing industry as we know it. Engineering manufacturing services that propose to survive in the post-pandemic cut-throat competition must fully embrace Industry 5.0 and recreate their companies’ future— and the sooner, the better.