The Future of Making Things

How Production Engineering is Shaping Manufacturing

As the world moves towards greater sustainability and digitization, production engineering is evolving to enable more resource-efficient, flexible and smart manufacturing.

It will be interesting to note some emerging focus areas for production engineers that will transform how products are made in the future:

Automation and Digital Connectivity

Production engineers play a key role in implementing digitally connected, data-driven systems to automate tasks, track inventory, and enable on-demand manufacturing. IoT (Internet of Things) ecosystems of sensors, connectivity, cloud platforms and analytics tools is helping to realize the smart factory vision.

This connectivity and intelligence unlocks major efficiency gains, by having real-time data collection, advanced analytics and self-optimizing processes.

Take the example of the fashion industry in India and abroad... it still relies heavily on manual labor, producing 100-150 billion garments annually. However, a small change through IoT driven automation can multiply the production, throughout the fashion industry.

The Fifth Industrial Revolution will see more humans working symbiotically with machines to increase efficiency. Technology is enabling supply chain transparency and digital connectivity, allowing small brands to access manufacturing capabilities online. Kompress India, for example, is leveraging IoT and analytics tools to gain supply chain visibility.

Sustainable Manufacturing

With rising awareness of environmental impact, production engineers are integrating principles of sustainability into manufacturing processes. Use of renewable energy, reducing carbon footprint through energy efficiency, responsible sourcing of raw materials and zero waste manufacturing techniques are becoming critical.

For example in fashion industry, production engineers have to spearhead innovations like use of recycled materials and green chemistry in fabric production. At Kompress India too, we are adopting solar power, biodiesel generators and equipment retrofits to improve energy efficiency of our production facilities.

Advanced Robotics and Automation

New generation collaborative robots with advanced sensors and AI capabilities are making human-robot collaboration on factory floors safer and more seamless. These robots can automate repetitive tasks, e.g. in apparel factories, to improve productivity, quality and worker safety.

Production engineers have to stay updated on the rapid advancements in industrial robotics to leverage their potential for enhancing productivity, quality and worker safety in any industry.

Recently Kompress India deployed robots for material handling and machine tending applications.

Additive Manufacturing

One of the fastest areas of growth has come from 3D printing. Also known as additive manufacturing, it allows objects to be built layer-by-layer, using materials like polymers, metal powders and composites.

This approach promises faster prototyping, greater design complexity, on-demand production and minimal wastage. Production engineers in India however, need to develop expertise in additive techniques like FDM, SLS and metal 3D printing to enable agile and distributed manufacturing.

Skills Development

As manufacturing technologies advance rapidly, upskilling of production engineers in areas like data science, AI/ML, automation and green engineering becomes critical. Production engineers have to continuously learn and expand their skillsets to spearhead innovation in manufacturing. Kompress India encourages its production engineers to take up certification courses and keep abreast of emerging trends.

With expertise in digital, sustainable and smart manufacturing, production engineers can transform future factories for improved speed, efficiency and sustainability.

Have you been updating your production and manufacturing processes lately?