Any country whose exports comprise mainly manufactured goods would do well to think of smart manufacturing. At the heart of smart manufacturing lies a smart factory which is equipped with a fully connected fluid system that can use artificial intelligence and data from connected operations and production systems to learn and adapt to new information. That results in faster manufacturing operations with less human intervention and more precision.

Automated workflows, synchronization of assets and optimised energy consumption in smart factory can increase yield, uptime and quality while reducing costs and waste. These smart factories will utilise multiple digital and physical technologies including digital twin, digital design, additive manufacturing machines and autonomous robots. It is this kind of technology that will drive production processes in the not so distant future. In fact, companies in wide-ranging industries from apparel to automotive manufacturing are already building smart factories.

Bangladesh and Vietnam have already made it a part of their long term industrial policies and companies are investing heavily for strategic benefits. Vietnamese corporations estimate spending heavily on digitisation and automation with the next five years and these potential investments may be significantly larger than global estimates. The expected benefits of investing in Industry 4.0 by Vietnam’s workforce include improvement in operational efficiency and improved access to customers through integration and digitisation of value chains.