Ever since 2006, when the term was first used at a National Science Foundation workshop on cyberinfrastructure, business writers have been full of praise over the glowing promise of “smart manufacturing” — the idea that if you appropriately integrate a whole series of advanced digital systems, you can dramatically improve every aspect of a company’s operations.
Smart manufacturing is a lofty goal and sometimes difficult to grasp, both because its constituent technologies are quite complex and because the concept itself is continuing to evolve in terms of what it is and what it does. Nevertheless, it is an aspiration shared by many in the business world. And it is one being quietly embraced by the U.S. government as part of an emerging national economic strategy.
