However, a wide adoption of this advanced automation has been delayed. “That is not necessarily or simply a technological gap,” says John Hart, a mechanical engineering professor and director of the Advanced Production Technologies Center at MIT. “It is related to the capacities of the workforce and the financial commitments and the required risk.” For small and medium enterprises, and those with Brownfield sites, mostly facilities with inherited systems, the barriers for implementation are significant.
In recent years, governments have intervened to accelerate industrial progress. Through a resurgence of industrial policies, governments are encouraging high -tech manufacturing, re -elocalizing critical production processes and reducing dependence on fragile global supply chains.
All these developments converge at a key moment for manufacturing. External pressures on the industry are found with technological progress and these new political incentives, can finally allow change towards advanced automation.
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