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Industry 4.0 is underway. Data analytics, augmented reality, generative design, artificial intelligence, cobots, additive manufacturing and other technologies are already helping manufacturers increase efficiency, lower prices, and improve service, delivery and quality. And there’s more to come.

You must learn to walk before you can run. That aphorism is as true for product assembly as it is for learning how to draw or play golf. Before manufacturers can implement advanced automation technologies, they must first master their parts and processes. This eBook will provide information to help engineers plan for investments and improve their assembly operations before deploying advanced technologies.

Justifying automation has never been easier. The Covid pandemic, coupled with a severe worker shortage, a widening skills gap and the "great resignation," has increased demand for automated guided vehicles, conveyors, robots and other types of equipment.

Some questions that manufacturers must address have a simple yes or no answer. Others are not so clear cut. A good example of the latter type is 'Should we build automation in-house?'

That marketers increasingly use robots and automation equipment in their TV ads should come as no surprise. To them, such machinery represents the product they're selling: An automatic and simple push-button solution to the problem consumers are worried about at that moment.

Many people are afraid of snakes and spiders. But, robots and other machines also create anxiety and trepidation in some humans. While Industry 4.0 technology, such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, collaborative robots, data analytics and digital twins, now make it easier than ever for humans and machines to work in close proximity, fears persist.

Does this sound familiar? Management envisions "a sea of robots" on the shop floor. They haven't deployed robots before, and they don't have a specific goal in mind. They just want "automation." The next thing you know, there's a collaborative robot on the loading dock. Your job: Find something to do with it.

Poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou wrote, “You can’t really know where you are going until you know where you have been.”