Manufacturing is ambitiously pursuing digital transformation by adopting Industry 4.0. New and emerging technologies are used to address numerous goals that are often at odds: increasing customization without losing efficiency or reducing time to market while also improving quality.

Today’s manufacturers are under pressure to be more flexible, reduce downtime and costs and increase efficiencies. 

Consumer products have been transformed by the Internet of Things (IoT), the ability of smart connected devices to communicate and share information with each other. Now, IoT technology is expanding to NDT maintenance inspections and manufacturing QA/QC. 

For decades, quality, low cost, and on-time delivery have been the primary demands of manufacturing customers. Recently, a new demand has been added to the mix—speed. Customers still want a quality product delivered on-time at a fair price. Only now they want it faster. 

Quality 4.0 derived from Industry 4.0, also known as the fourth industrial revolution. Prior to the fourth revolution, the first revolution started with machine manufacturing, steam power, and the move to cities by agriculturalists. 

At the end of the day, nothing matters more than customer satisfaction. Fundamentally, this sounds quite simple; make the customer happy, and all is well. Keeping customers happy and loyal to your brand, however, is not as easy as it sounds. 

In a lean manufacturing process, a poka-yoke method is employed to eliminate product defects by preventing, correcting, or drawing attention to human errors in real time. Industrial engineer Shigeo Shingo first applied the term poka-yoke (“mistake-proofing” in Japanese) to the Toyota Production System. 

You probably have data you didn’t even know you had—data that holds valuable information. You just need a way to reveal that data and uncover what it can do for you. That’s where enterprise visibility comes in.