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What will the factory of the future look like? This is the question that many professionals in the automation and manufacturing industries are seeking to answer. While most proposed descriptions are lofty yet lacking in concrete details, there are also many attempts to extrapolate from cutting-edge technologies that already exist. What needs to be done is to connect the grandiose vision with the minutiae, and its sweeping (and yet unrealized) capabilities with today’s real-world applications that sit right on the boundary between practical and experimental.

For manufacturers looking to get started with the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), a common question that comes up is whether they should use the edge or the cloud for data analysis purposes. However, this doesn’t have to be an either-or choice. In fact, both strategies are optimized to fit different needs and can work well together. Some manufacturers don’t want their data going into the cloud for proprietary reasons.

Despite the economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for packaged products – and a greater variety of such products – is continuing to rise. Specifically, manufacturers in the beverage industry are faced with the pressure of providing the requisite product diversity while ensuring compliance with new FSMA standards. Let’s take a look at four ways in which bottling and capping machine builders are dealing with these challenges.