smart manufacturing (SM)

Smart Manufacturing(SM) is an approach to intelligent manufacturing of products where the production process is controlled via the Internet. The goals of Smart Manufacturing are to identify workflows that can be automated and to improve manufacturing.

Smart manufacturing is a specific application for industrial IoT. It involves embedding sensors in production equipment that collect data about production status and machine performance. Whereas previously such data was collected on-site and used only in the event of a fault, in smart manufacturing it is used to analyze data for the entire production line and for the factory.

The data can be used to draw conclusions about the condition of production equipment, parts that would need to be replaced, and preventive, unscheduled maintenance. This can potentially prevent breakdowns and reduce downtime. In addition, analysts can run simulations of various processes with the data collected.