How Smart Manufacturing Changes Everything
Automation of processes that increase yield and raise productivity, is the core of what people think of when they speak of smart manufacturing. Smart is not limited to process change but opens the door to the use of new materials. Rather than stocking inventory 3-D printing capability allows custom built job-lots of one. Smart is certainly transforming manufacturing but it also transforms companies themselves. Witness Valin Corp. a San Jose supplier to the semiconductor that nearly perished in the wake of the dotcom bust of 2001.