The industry worldwide can strategize the adoption of industrial AI, digital twins and digital threads, among other advanced digitalization tools

Manufacturing is at the core of everything that powers the world today, from the products we use daily to the technologies shaping our future. It is a driving force behind innovation, where new technologies are tested and scaled to enhance flexibility, productivity, and resilience, laying the foundation for continuous improvement and a competitive edge.

To drive innovation, companies cannot simply design a product and ship it elsewhere to be built, sold, and delivered to their customers. They must bring product development and manufacturing closer together to create an integrated system that will improve visibility in the supply chain.

With senior workers retiring, attracting younger generations into manufacturing has become increasingly difficult. It is therefore crucial to create well-paying, meaningful jobs for the future — positions where people feel a sense of pride in contributing to something new and relevant, making a tangible impact on our world.

Navigating challenges in modern manufacturing
In Singapore, employers struggle to hire local talent due to a lack of qualified candidates, high salary expectations, and a general lack of interest in certain roles in the manufacturing sector.

Another challenge is addressing the environmental impact of the industry — from material sourcing to ongoing operations and legacy practices. Clean water, air, and raw materials are finite resources. Hence manufacturing must evolve to be sustainable. This involves minimizing pollution, reducing energy consumption, and utilizing energy and materials more efficiently.

In Singapore, the manufacturing sector is the largest consumer of electricity. If unaddressed, the sector risks jeopardizing the country’s ambitions of becoming a green economy by 2030 and delaying its progress towards its net-zero target by 2050. However, this also presents a substantial opportunity for energy savings by optimizing energy management. The government has highlighted several opportunities for energy savings and management to minimize energy wastage, cut energy costs and help companies reduce spending. Also:

  • Complementing these efforts, integrating AI solutions with factory automation and robotics will enable manufacturers to thrive in this new environment, advancing towards a more sustainable future. The development and collaboration around these tools will not only bring tangible benefits but also engage the curiosity and passion of the next generation.
  • A key solution to addressing sustainability and environmental challenges lies in the continuous growth and development of digital technologies, driven by the digital transformation wave, which brings about excitement for digital threads and digital twins.
  • Individual machines have been redesigned to be smarter and easier to use. However, few manufacturing firms have taken it beyond that. The key is to adopt digital solutions for use after the product design stage: for planning, production, optimization, logistics, supply chain, and managing the service of a product once it is in use. Digital transformation means training people and using tools to create a smarter, more efficient factory.
  • The digital threads concept refers to the chains of solutions that are built out of various products. These products have to be well-connected so that they all play and speak together. A factory can use an end-to-end chain throughout our operations, but will not have to deploy the whole chain if this is not needed. To digitalize a factory, management can pick a product or a semi-solution and extend it to the next level. However, all of these different components have to work together because shared data is the backbone of the digital thread. Information must flow from product development to the shop floor and back again.
  • Other technologies that greatly benefit smaller manufacturers include cloud computing, high-capacity processing, Software as a Service, and industrial AI. These technologies make it easier for smaller factories to digitalize their manufacturing operations, eliminating the need for installing complex systems, maintaining large server rooms, or managing extensive IT teams. This can enhance service delivery, foster better collaboration, and reduce operational costs which can then be reinvested into growth and innovation.
  • Industry-proven AI capabilities have a huge potential to increase efficiency by optimizing manufacturing processes, machines, and people’s time and talents. Whether it is a copilot assisting with system queries, or a data-driven AI agent to guide engineers on how to best use a block of raw material, AI can drive significant improvements in productivity and accuracy. By bringing this data into the cloud and creating a data lake, factories can contextualize and analyze it using AI tools. This process will enable management to quickly understand what is happening on the shop floor and optimize manufacturing operations in real time.

Globally, manufacturing industries will also need to inspire the younger generation by making it a rewarding field that offers opportunities to contribute to meaningful work for humanity.