Smart factories are about to get even smarter. With the adoption of spatial computing – the digitisation of spatial relationships between machines, people and objects in order to identify their precise location and movements within a 3D space – industrial companies have an opportunity to take the optimisation of worksites to a whole new level.
To understand the scale of that opportunity, let’s first take a step back. Over the past decade, manufacturers have been able to reach new levels of efficiency through industrial internet of things (IIoT) programmes. These have equipped factory-floor machinery with smart sensors able to report on their status and usage and receive instructions remotely.
Connected operations provide far greater insight into how facilities are running. In turn, companies have been able to make significant strides in terms of maximising revenue, reducing costs and improving quality – but the current benefits only extend so far, because...