This information came to me about a month ago. I’m still catching up with filtering through all the releases from the last couple of months last year. Covid may have kept many people indoors, but it didn’t slow down work in engineering, marketing, or PR. This is a survey conducted by Google Cloud and the Harris Poll regarding the effects of Covid on manufacturing. This is a blog post from Google’s Dominik Wee, Managing Director Manufacturing and Industrial.
After facing severe headwinds from COVID-19, ranging from decreased orders to negative impacts on operations, manufacturers around the world have started to revamp their operating models and supply chain strategies—and now feel more prepared to successfully navigate future pandemics, according to our new research released today.
The key for manufacturers’ ability to transform—despite the ongoing pandemic—is their embrace of digital enablers and disruptive technologies. In fact, more than two in five manufacturers have increased their use of data and analytics, digital productivity tools, and public cloud platforms, irrespective of their location in the world.
“Manufacturers have always prepared for unpredictable events that could adversely impact operations,” said Bob Parker, Senior Vice President, Enterprise Applications, Data Intelligence, Services, and Industry Research for IDC. “But what makes COVID-19 so unique is its sustained nature that touches the supply chain, irrespective of geographical location, in a way we haven’t seen in our lifetime. As a result, we’re seeing an urgency from manufacturers to quickly put the right technological levers in place, sooner rather than later. While there may have only been initial conversations about digital transformation in the past, we’re now seeing a rapid acceleration of critical tools and technologies being adopted within the industry.”
Below are five noteworthy takeaways we’ve identified within our findings:
1. Not surprisingly, as with other industries, the pandemic has had a devastating effect on manufacturers overall. Nearly all of manufacturers (95%) believe their manufacturing or supply chain operations have been negatively impacted by the pandemic. The top three adverse impacts include lost productivity (46%), lower sales (44%), and increased lead times, possibly due to supply chain disruptions (39%). About a third of manufacturers have also experienced downward pressure on overall customer demand (35%), labor shortages (34%), and/or the inability to maintain a safe working environment (33%).
2. To overcome COVID-19-related challenges, manufacturers were forced to pivot their operating models and supply chain strategies. More than three-fourths of surveyed manufacturers (77%) said COVID-19 caused their companies to re-evaluate their operating model strategies. The most common reasons include an inability to collaborate effectively with value chain partners (41%), the inability to collaborate effectively with employees (40%), and a lack of the right technology to operate without a large number of on-site workers (39%).
3. Technology played the most critical role in maneuvering through the pandemic, particularly “disruptive” AI, robotics, and more. More than three-fourths of surveyed manufacturers (76%) revealed that the pandemic has caused their companies to increase the use of digital enablers and disruptive technologies such as: cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics, robotics, 3D printing/additive manufacturing, Internet of Things, and augmented or virtual reality. More specifically, the top three digital enablers/disruptive technologies that respondents are further utilizing are data and analytics (46%), digital productivity tools (43%), and public cloud platforms (42%).
4. Interestingly, despite many manufacturers not being prepared for COVID-19, most now feel prepared to successfully navigate future pandemics. As mentioned earlier, nearly (95%) believe their manufacturing or supply chain operations have been negatively impacted by the pandemic. That said, 82% of those surveyed now feel prepared to deal with another COVID-19-like event in the future. This sentiment could be related to how manufacturers successfully ventured into new verticals, such as providing ventilators and PPE during shortages and resuming investments in new digital factory plans.
5. Finally, the pandemic—and its aftermath on the manufacturing industry—has differed greatly by country.
1. In Japan, approximately half of manufacturers who cited a negative impact (51%) say that the pandemic has led to lower sales, compared to 44% globally.
2. In Korea, more than two in five manufacturers who cited a negative impact (43%) said that the pandemic hindered their ability to maintain a safe working environment, compared to 33% globally.
3. In France, nearly half of manufacturers (48%) felt equipped with the right technological tools to maintain business continuity in the first 1-3 months of the pandemic, compared to 37% globally.
4. In the UK, more than two in five manufacturers (43%) said that dependency on legacy technology has created more risk for their respective business operations over the next year, compared to 30% globally.
5. In Italy, more than a third of manufacturers (35%) felt that their IT systems lacked necessary redundancies, which undermined their overall operational resiliency, compared to slightly less than a quarter of overall surveyed manufacturers (23%).
6. In Germany, for 86% of manufacturers, COVID-19 has caused an increased use of digital enablers and disruptive technologies, compared to 76% globally.
7. In the United States, 64%of manufacturers have increased their use of data and analytics, compared to 46% globally.
Research Methodology
The survey was conducted online by The Harris Poll on behalf of Google Cloud, from October 15 – November 4, 2020, among 1,154 senior manufacturing executives in France (n=150), Germany (n=200), Italy (n=154), Japan (n=150), South Korea (n=150), the UK (n=150), and the U.S. (n=200) who are employed full-time at a company with more than 500 employees, and who work in the manufacturing industry with a title of director level or higher. The data in each country were weighted by number of employees to bring them into line with actual company size proportions in the population. A global post-weight was applied to ensure equal weight of each country in the global total.
She had had an accomplished career in sales and executive positions with fast-moving companies. Then she started a company bottling flavored, unsweetened water. Curious about some aspects of the business, she took up a friend’s contact suggestion and talked with an executive at Coca-Cola. During the conversation, he said, “Listen sweetie…”
Kara Golden used that slight as the impetus to succeed with her new company, Hint. And succeed it did. After many struggles and setbacks.
Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts + Doubters reveals her story about building a company in a competitive market. They chose a perfect picture for the cover. I look at the set of her jaw and the look in her eyes and have no doubt but what she’d be a success.
Many of the dozen readers of this blog are in the food & beverage market, perhaps building bottling machines or doing custom, contract filling and capping. Integral to the story is the pursuit of contract companies that would help her get her product to market. We learn most of the factors it takes from conception to testing to production to marketing to merchandising for success in the market.
It’s a great read for all of us. I’d especially recommend getting a copy for your daughters. We still live in a society that glorifies rich, white, men (or if you’re in another country, drop the “white” part). If the other half of the population is encouraged to succeed, it lifts all of us.
Delivering what is possibly one of the largest global SD-WAN deals, [Orange] have successfully migrated 80% of Siemens AG’s global sites to the network as part of its large-scale digital transformation program.
This era of technology could be called the “software-defined” era. The push for software-defined control has re-ignited with the Open Process Automation efforts. The discrete-side effort sort of fizzled, although many in Germany believe that the companies building controllers with CODESYS software platform qualifies. I think much work remains to fulfill that vision.
Software-defined has also invaded networking. Orange Business Services, the European telecom company, sent a blog post by Axel Hinze regarding a project for Siemens AG about implementing a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN).
This project has proceeded at pace even during the global pandemic, where the demands on the Siemens WAN have increased with virtual teams and teleworkers collaborating on global projects. We have met Siemens’ requirements by combining SD-WAN technology with cloud- and web-based services and solutions.
As a global business with subsidiaries and divisions all over the world, Siemens “needs a reliable and flexible communication network that is a critical business enabler and can evolve with our growing business”, as its VP of IT Strategy & Governance Frederik Janssen has said.
Siemens has put SD-WAN at the heart of its Siemens Digitalization Network (SDN), which is designed to strengthen its’ IT infrastructure and increase network performance across the organization. It provides centralized cloud control with combined communication capabilities, enabling customers to increase flexibility and performance alongside cost efficiencies. SDN will also allow the multinational to take advantage of advances in digitalization to enhance Industry 4.0 processes.
Flexible SD-WAN also provides the foundation of the Siemens “zero trust” security framework, which improves security by authenticating and authorizing every device wanting to connect to the network irrespective of its location. This will enable Siemens to effectively mitigate, detect and respond to risks across its entire infrastructure.
Business benefits already being seen
The Siemens locations that have been connected to the SD-WAN network are already seeing the benefits of this new approach, including greater business flexibility and agility. They can use bandwidth more efficiently, helping ensure high levels of performance for critical applications without forfeiting on security. In addition, operational costs have been reduced through internet-centric traffic management.
Greater network visibility also makes it easier for Siemens to see where upgrades are necessary to ensure its connectivity is always optimized. Three large sites in Brazil have seen substantial cost savings switching to SD-WAN, for example, while sites in the UK and Mexico have noted a reduction in the load on the MPLS Siemens intranet.
Global network integration and delivery
Orange Business Services was engaged to migrate Siemens’ entire global infrastructure to a dynamic and flexible SD-WAN network to connect cloud applications and IoT devices in 2018 in a six-year contract worth 240 million Euros. The contract spans 94 countries on five continents, and the scope has been streamlined to connect 1,000 sites and campuses.
By consolidating network design and maintenance with a single digital services provider, Siemens has been able to reduce overall complexity and improve application competences and agility. We work closely together as trusted partners to deliver seamless worldwide SD-WAN coverage with the highest degree of security.
As a trailblazer in innovation and technologies, Siemens set the highest benchmarks for this project. Our success in delivering, migrating and implementing this huge digital transformation project and managing Siemens’ critical global communications infrastructure highlights our end-to-end integration expertise to deliver global projects at scale.
OK, so I’m on an ABB kick, it seems. Today is the annual report from the ARC Advisory Group on Distributed Control Systems (DCS) market share. And for the 21st consecutive year, the leader is ABB.
When you are older, you have memories. I remember a time when it was just A and BB. The BB part purchased our building when a certain company president drove us into Chapter 7 of the bankruptcy code. (Not me, I tried to get us out.) Then A+BB=ABB, then ABB consolidating the DCS market by acquiring a number of companies. And ABB has managed not only to not screw up the acquisitions (which many companies do) but build a sustainable product line. Following is the release from ABB:
ARC estimates the global market valued at $15 billion. Holding an overall share of 19.2%, ABB leads the field thanks to its domain knowledge in multiple industries, extensive service network and a continued investment in technology and digital solutions that meet rapidly changing customer requirements. This puts ABB more than two points ahead of the nearest DCS competitor.
The largest share of 2019 DCS market growth came from oil and gas, chemicals, mining, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, followed by food & beverage, metals, cement, and pulp & paper. With its two main DCS offerings, ABB Ability System 800xA and ABB Ability Symphony Plus, ABB has a strong presence in each of these segments. ABB is also a leader in several of the key DCS trends identified in the report, including Modular Automation, Batch, Characterizable I/O, and Remote Services.
As the DCS leader, ABB continuously develops new control benefits for customers. For example, by processing the massive amounts of data generated by the DCS, ABB continues to develop new data analytics that help customers to increase production efficiency, and leverage machine learning capabilities that improve problem predictability and extend asset life.
“I want to thank our customers for their longstanding support, helping us to shape ABB’s automation offering and expertise into what it is today,” said Bernhard Eschermann, Chief Technology Officer, ABB Industrial Automation. “Automation makes a difference in the world around us. The DCS is the backbone for much of the digitalization transforming our customers’ industries. It helps to provide many of the elements essential to modern society, such as the water we drink, the energy we consume, or the materials used to build our homes.”
“During more robust economic times, process industry producers often rely on new production machinery to increase output. In the current highly demanding economic environment, customers are squeezing as much value as they can out of existing assets, running as efficiently as possible to protect profit margins. Maximizing assets and efficiencies is what DCS do,” he said. “We see it as our duty to continue to develop solutions that offer these benefits and more for our customers.”
A key focus of ABB’s annual $1.5 billion research & development investment is the further expansion of DCS and other digital and automation capabilities in the context of Industry 4.0. In July, ABB brought two new offerings to market that use DCS data with value-added applications to improve customer production availability, process performance and product quality. The ABB Ability Edgenius Operations Data Manager gleans value from DCS data, while the ABB Ability GenixIndustrial Analytics and AI Suite combines data from operations (e.g. DCS), engineering and information technology for multi-dimensional data analytics and decision support.
Services saw the highest growth in relation to software and hardware in the ARC report. This trend accelerated in 2020, which created a high need for remote services. One such service, ABB Ability Collaborative Operations, a remote-enabled network of ABB experts and technologies, uses many ABB DCS technologies to remotely monitor and support customer assets and processes. ABB experts in ABB Collaborative Operations centers globally are available 24/7 to assist customers. The Collaborative Operations network continues to provide remote support for customers in travel-restricted situations.
https://new.abb.com/control-systems/system-800xa
Underground mining future
ABB electrification and automation knowledge and solutions have been employed in a pioneering mine of the future project, which has ultimate ambitions to demonstrate zero carbon dioxide emissions and productivity increases of 50 percent.
ABB has provided electrification, connected control and operations management systems, high-visualization and mobile operator workplaces as part of a global mining partnership to visualize a once-in-a-generation technology shift and reduce climate impact.
Devised by LKAB, the Sustainable Underground Mining (SUM) project has the goal of setting a new world standard for sustainable mining at great depths in partnership with ABB, Combitech, Epiroc, and Sandvik. The framework outlines ambitions for zero carbon dioxide emissions, completely safe mines for humans, productivity increases of 50 per cent and deeper mining.
ABB will continue to contribute its knowledge in electrification, automation and workplaces together with other suppliers to the mining industry. The collaboration aims to find new methods and smarter solutions for mining operations in the future. Test work in LKAB’s Kiruna mine, northern Sweden, as well as a virtual test mine will study the best way to build a carbon dioxide free and autonomous production system.
Within the mine, the Konsuln orebody is used to demonstrate future workplaces in a decentralized environment with efficient use of an autonomous electrical mobile transport system in a mixed environment. Real time process information is available to all organizations involved. When combined with the wider efforts of the SUM partnership, this shows a way of bringing completely new technology solutions to market for safer, more sustainable and more efficient mining production processes.
“We are taking significant strides towards a vision of the future operator environment through smarter working and demonstrable results,” said Jan Nyqvist, Global Product Manager for Underground Mining Automation at ABB, and one of the leaders in the project. “Electrification and automation are two important factors for the mining industry to continue its rapid, but effective, modernization. Sharing of information and data is crucial to reach substantial end goals.
“It is becoming increasingly common for suppliers to create dedicated collaboration groups to reach the best possible solutions for their customers. Collective successes and progress and the meeting of key targets for SUM, are initial evidence of the mutual benefits of collaboration.”
ABB has a relatively large team committing time to the project, with experts in digitalization and research, as well as electrification and automation.
By 2022, the ABB electrification and automation solutions will be fully installed, and the aim is that a new standard for mining production will be set globally by 2030.
I have accumulated several pieces of news from ABB. The company has spent the Covid months quite busy.
Peter Terwiesch, President of ABB Industrial Automation becomes executive member of the EU Alliance established to kick-start the European hydrogen industry.
ABB supports India’s Koppal district to ease water shortages with digital water management solutions.
ABB launches ABB Ability Safety Plus for hoists ensuring the highest level of personnel and equipment safety.
Clean Hydrogen Industry
ABB has been granted membership into the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance (ECH2A), the official EU body focused on an ambitious deployment of hydrogen (H2) technologies by 2030, as a means to reduce carbon emissions and help achieve European carbon neutrality by 2050.
Peter Terwiesch
Peter Terwiesch will be ABB’s executive sponsor in the Alliance and will be actively working with governments and other Alliance members to scale up the hydrogen value chain across Europe.
The use of hydrogen has been identified as crucial to achieve the objectives of the European Green Deal and Europe’s clean energy transition. It has several uses, from storing renewable energy to fuelling heavy transport, and as energy and feedstock in energy-intensive industry, such as in the steel or chemical sectors.
Most importantly, hydrogen only emits water and heat when used, no carbon. In fact, if H2 is produced from renewable sources, the whole hydrogen value chain is carbon-free. Hydrogen thereby is an excellent complement to electricity and offers a solution to decarbonize industrial processes and economic sectors where reducing carbon emissions is both urgent and hard to achieve.
“Europe’s opportunity to reduce carbon emissions by scaling up the production, transport and use of hydrogen is significant. Automation, electrification and digitalization will play an important role in unlocking this potential. At ABB we are proud to be joining the ECH2A, to continue our collaborations with governments, industries, regulators and academia to further accelerate the implementation of hydrogen,” said Peter Terwiesch, President of ABB Industrial Automation. “We have a unique mix of relevant domain expertise and solutions to support industry and make a real difference in deploying new clean hydrogen technologies.”
ABB enables the transition from carbon-based fuels to hydrogen through its expertise and portfolio of systems, products, services and digital solutions. The company is collaborating with customers, partners and legislators to build the hydrogen ecosystem – from key technology collaborations to explore large-scale green production systems, to a new hydrogen production facility in France, and the development of megawatt-scale fuel cells to power large ocean-going ships.
In a unique project led by L&T Construction Water & Effluent Treatment IC for the Government of Kartanaka, ABB’s end-to-end solutions will help the local water authority to track, measure, and optimize water use in this drought-stricken region of southwest India, as well as pump and distribute clean treated river water to village homes. The solution includes 635 digital flowmeters and technologies to improve control at pumping stations and reservoirs.
With a population of around one million people, the Koppal district is regularly challenged by water shortages. Until now, responses have ranged from preserving ancient wells to following age-old water conservation practices, but thanks to digital technologies, the Kushtagi and Yelburga villages will soon benefit from ABB’s digital water management solutions as part of a multi-village clean drinking water scheme.
Koppal needed solutions that could effectively monitor water flow and manage leaks to reduce non-revenue water and achieve overall productivity improvement in a widely dispersed water distribution network set-up. L&T Construction Water & Effluent Treatment IC, the lead contractor for the project, chose ABB Ability Symphony Plus SCADA and ABB’s AquaMaster 4 flowmeters for the project, sanctioned by the Rural Water Supply & Sanitation Department, Koppal, Karnataka.
ABB’s engagement spans the end-to-end automation and instrumentation of the project, from the pumping station at the river to the treatment of clean drinking water. The route comprises 620 overhead tanks and 16 reservoirs. The project involves putting in place a network of RTUs (remote terminal units) for remote locations and pumping stations and ABB Ability Symphony Plus SCADA to supervise and control the operation. ABB Ability Symphony Plus SCADA is designed to maximize reliability and availability of water plants and networks through integrated information management, integration of equipment, and process optimization based on the entire water network data for safer and enhanced operations.
The SCADA solutions help monitor and analyze daily flow consumption patterns thereby identifying possible leaks and sending the information in real-time to the central control room. This helps to avert water loss because it means that leaks are identified and can be repaired swiftly.
ABB’s AquaMaster 4 elctromagnetic flowmeters, running on battery power, will offer reliability even in low flow conditions, in areas where most mechanical flowmeters would fail. They offer measurement accuracy down to flow velocities lower than 0.1m/s where most meters struggle to even detect flow. As the vast majority of leaks are small but continuous, the ability of AquaMaster to detect small variations in flow is crucial in combating the water shortage challenge in the Koppal district.
G Srinivas Rao, Head of ABB Measurement & Analytics in India, said: “As India moves swiftly towards smart and sustainable villages, towns and cities, one of the key challenges is water management. This project shows how ABB’s digital water management solutions can be deployed not only in cities but also to provide clean, drinking water in the villages that are crucial to our agrarian economy. We are proud partners in this project in the state where ABB India is headquartered, and in the district which contributes so significantly to our agricultural output.”
ABB Ability Safety Plus for hoists
Global technology company ABB is launching ABB Ability Safety Plus for hoists, a suite of mine hoist safety products that brings the highest level of personnel and equipment safety available to the mining industry. The products include Safety Plus Hoist Monitor (SPHM), Safety Plus Hoist Protector (SPHP) and Safety Plus Brake System (SPBS) including Safety Brake Hydraulics (SBH).
Designed in accordance with the international ‘safety of machinery’ standard (IEC62061), the products have been independently certified by research institute RISE (Research Institute of Sweden) which works with companies, academia and the public sector in industrialization, quality assurance and certification.
ABB Ability Safety Plus for hoists includes the new ABB SIL 3 Safety Plus Brake System (SPBS), which is the mining industry’s first fully independently certified Safety Integrity Level 3 (SIL 3) mine hoist brake system. SPBS will increase the safety of personnel riding mine hoists as well as the safety of the equipment, hoist and shaft infrastructure. The new SPHP provides enhanced protection for the mine hoist and mine shaft infrastructure equipment.
ABB SIL 3 SPBS handles the application of the safety brakes during emergency stops and the prevention of brake lift. ABB SIL 3 SPHP monitors the speed and position of the hoists. It also monitors the instrumentation used by personnel accessing or using the hoist from different levels, for example, at gates and maintenance platforms, emergency stop buttons and remote lockout points. The ABB SIL 3 SPHP interfaces with the safety brake system to bring or keep the hoist to a safe state. It also interfaces with the drive and hoist control system.
“This is a significant milestone in mine hoist safety representing a world first for fully certified Safety Integrity Level 3 hoisting,” said Oswald Deuchar, Global Product Line Manager for Hoisting, ABB. “Labor safety is a key priority for mine operators and increasing legislation underlines this imperative. The ABB Ability Safety Plus for hoists suite of products, SIL 3-rated components and self-diagnostics will ensure high availability of the mine hoist while providing the highest level of safety. These products are ready-made safety solutions, which are exhaustively tested in house, and designed for tough mine environments.”
US seeing much lower negative growth than previously thought
Chinese manufacturing output now predicted to surpass 2019 levels in 2020
Semiconductor and textiles sectors on road to swift recovery; aerospace will continue to lag
MIO Tracker dataset now features Argentina
There is manufacturing market research—and then there is manufacturing market research. I have had a few chances to talk with Interact Analysis’ CEO Adrian Lloyd and came away impressed with the way they do market research. This report has sat on my desktop for a couple of weeks. I needed to start catching up with all the cool information I’ve accumulated. Check it out. You can download the report (link below).
Interact Analysis has published its newly updated Manufacturing Industry Output (MIO) Tracker report – a comprehensive and highly-detailed report on the status of the global manufacturing sector. The latest update shows a notable upward revision to key manufacturing economies, with both China and the US being much less impacted than previously predicted. This quarter’s update report is available free to all here.
The research shows that the -10% contraction previously forecast for the US in 2020 has been reduced by more than half. This is largely due to the fact there have been no lockdowns, so while the virus has raged, manufacturing production has continued. China, whose government operated a stringent regime of virus-control, is now forecast to see a small amount of growth, of the order of 0.9% in 2020. Other Asian economies have fared better than expected, but the forecast for Europe remains roughly the same. As a result of these reassessments, the global forecast of negative growth for 2020 has been revised down from -7.8% (predicted in August) to -4.8%, and global manufacturing output is now predicted to surpass 2019 levels by 2022, rather than 2024. While radical, this reset is based on evidence collected on the ground by Interact Analysis’s team of experts.
Where specific manufacturing sectors are concerned, all except aerospace will return to 2019 levels by 2023, and most will burst through the barrier in 2022. Strong performance in APAC regions means the semiconductor industry is now forecast to surpass 2019 levels this year, rather than in 2021, and monthly indicators from Eurostat and the US point to a far swifter recovery in the textiles sector than previously forecast. While aerospace is predicted to struggle over the medium term, automotive, another major sector hard-hit by the pandemic, is now predicted to surpass 2019 levels by 2023, rather than 2024 as previously forecast. The post-COVID stimulus packages, provided by European governments, often supporting their push towards hybridisation or full electrification of vehicles, is a factor here.
Adrian Lloyd, CEO of Interact Analysis, says: “Is there light at the end of the tunnel as far as manufacturing is concerned? Interact Analysis’s updated MIO Tracker gives good reason to think so. For me, it is particularly interesting, yet at the same time in hindsight perhaps also unsurprising, to see that the US’s ultra-lax virus controls appear to have resulted in improved performance for manufacturing; surpassed only by the performance that has been delivered by China’s ultra-strict approach.
“I am also excited to announce to those of our clients doing business in the Latin America region that, as of this update, Interact Analysis’s Manufacturing Industry Output tracker now includes Argentina – the third largest economy in South America. Finally, as a leading industrial market research agency, we want to do our part to help the industrial sector get back on its feet. That’s why we’ve made this quarter’s update report from the MIO Tracker free to all and you can download it here. To speak to me directly about prospects for global manufacturing, please get in touch: [email protected].”
About the report
The Manufacturing Industry Output (MIO) Tracker offers the most complete and unified analysis of the manufacturing industry globally. It quantifies the total value of manufacturing production with deep granularity for over 35 industries and machinery sectors, across 39 regions; presenting 13-years of historical data alongside a credible five-year forecast. Country data from across the globe has been carefully organised around a common taxonomy to provide easy-to-interrogate, like-for-like comparisons. The historical data reveals the relationship between industry and machinery production for a complete business cycle, going back from pre-recession to the present day. Understanding these complex correlations, alongside current country and industry projections, provides a more accurate forecast by country, industry and machinery sector.
Interact Analysis is an international provider of market research for the Intelligent Automation sector. Our team of experienced industry analysts delivers research into three core sectors: industrial automation, robotics and warehouse automation, and commercial vehicles. Intelligent Automation – which is the integration of artificial intelligence and automation – will change virtually every industry imaginable. This combination enables greater efficiencies, productivity, convenience, and scale. It has the potential to drastically alter the outlook for many traditional industries such as manufacturing, healthcare and automotive as well as to lead to the emergence of entirely new industries.
