Smart manufacturing and the Smart Factory is the key for a highly effective and user concentrated manufacturing process, in which all single steps from design of a product via the manufacturing process itself up to product maintenance are linked together in an adaptive and intelligent chain. Smart manufacturing is the process that employs computer controls, modeling, big data and other automation to improve manufacturing efficiencies, as well as integrating individualization approaches for the products and digitizing all steps of a process line. Smart manufacturing need technology connectivity and the advances in the contextualization of data. New manufacturing approaches, like Additive Manufacturing, Digital Photonic Production, new materials and reconfigurable manufacturing infrastructure will be the base of smart manufacturing. These new technologies need to be combined with first conventional methods and second with human centered manufacturing steps to allow a maximum on manufacturing efficiency and flexibility. Artificial intelligence, big data analysis and imaging the whole process chain in a digital world will lead to optimized manufacturing approaches and faster time to market for highly individualized products.

Smart manufacturing session in the innovation summit is to show how our future will be smart or won’t be, combining AI, AR, Sensing, and new tools and processes. This is, a new vision for tomorrow’s factories based on our own new knowledge and research.

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