The future of manufacturing requires productive, environmental and social efficiency

Dating back to the previous century, the manufacturing industry has been one of the main drivers of Spain’s economy. With major steelmaking, shipbuilding, automotive or machine tool sectors, manufacturing, as a key vector for the country’s growth, always knew how to evolve and adapt as demonstrated by growth figures reported in sectors such as aerospace, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, capital goods and renewables.

Although the manufacturing industry reacted resiliently to moments of crisis, the sector only accounts for about 12.3% of Spain’s Gross Added Value which now lags behind many other EU countries.

Globalisation and the presence of low-cost competitors are the two of the most prominent factors that have brought about this change. Demand, moreover, has evolved towards higher quality customised products that are more efficient. There are also stringent environmental policies targeted at achieving decarbonisation and reducing emissions posing new challenges for manufacturers.

Consequently, the industry is facing many uncertainties as pressure is mounting worldwide in terms of the energy transition. Consequently, the implementation of advanced technologies is essential to allow the Spanish economy to recover its leading role and ensure its competitiveness.

Key technologies

Technologies associated with connectivity, virtualisation and data exploitation are the first pillar of an advanced industry. Thanks to IoT, artificial intelligence and digital twins it is now possible to anticipate failures, optimise consumer patterns and plan actions with greater accuracy by mimicking how plants or machines operate to prevent incidents.

Automation and robotics are two key elements as they deliver higher levels of standardisation, productivity and quality control and reduce human errors. More specifically, collaborative robots improve safety in the case of repetitive or dangerous tasks and allow workers to perform higher added value activities.
The role played by additive manufacturing in sectors such as aerospace, healthcare and automotive is another relevant factor. Thanks to 3D printing there is less waste and complex geometries can be manufactured even when complex materials are involved.

Finally, sustainability acts like a cross-cutting technology that influences technological decisions. Nowadays, energy efficiency, the circular economy and the use of new vectors such as hydrogen are an absolute must.

These technologies are crucial to address the challenges currently faced by the industry. But there are other determining factors that are scalable and can be applied to SMEs or large multinational groups. They can also generate synergies between each other whenever several innovations are incorporated.

The incorporation of these technologies, however, has had to overcome several hurdles like sizeable investments, interoperabilities between equipment and systems and incipient risks such as cyberattacks affecting connected production environments. These new technological challenges show how important it is to have innovation capabilities.

A new paradigm

Industry 4.0 boosted digitisation and connectivity to improve connectivity but paid no attention to the wellbeing of humans and their role. There is a limit, however, to producing more and better whilst simultaneously reaching higher levels of efficiency. Based on the industry 5.0 approach, the European Commission intends to place humans in the centre and recognise their talent as a strategic factor to achieve a competitive industry.

Ensuring environmental and social sustainability is not only associated with challenges such as reducing the digital divide, overcoming qualification deficits, workforce ageing or gender issues and diversity inequalities, but also demands that pathways be set up to boost competitiveness based on the presence of upskilled workers enjoying a higher quality of life.

Secure working environments, training adapted to new technologies, enhanced human creativity based on using robots that perform repetitive tasks and greater retention of talent are factors that will eventually give rise to thriving and long-lasting factories.

Tekniker’s contribution

Tekniker has grown alongside the manufacturing sector for more than 40 years of its existence to significantly improve production plant performance.

As regards the digitisation of industrial processes, the technology centre has covered the entire value chain from data acquisition to exploitation with AI models. The organisation has also stored and processed information and developed a scalable and securitised digital infrastructure.

Another essential line of work has focused on technologies that do not only facilitate human-machine communications but also allow robots to operate in production environments. Although deep-learning viewing techniques are used for the detection of surface defects, there are signs of a shift towards towards hyperspectral vision combined with artificial intelligence for the advanced characterisations of materials.

As regards additive manufacturing, Tekniker is developing a technological line based on delivering energy directly via laser technology to provide powdered material and metallic wire for applications in which additive manufacturing is used to reinforce, repair and make metallic components. The experience acquired in developing and optimising this process and others such as machining has been supplemented by design capabilities applied to production resources and by developing and incorporating monitoring and control systems.

In terms of sustainability, and in addition to optimising energy flows in manufacturing processes, Tekniker has also improved material flows. Consequently, technologies have been developed to facilitate the design of more sustainable products and speed up procedures whenever these components have to be repaired or recycled.

Productive, social and environmental efficiency

As the current context is characterised by major uncertainties and very fast innovations, it is essential to explore some of these options to prevent a decline from occurring in the manufacturing industry and boost a sustainable and resilient industry capable of dealing with radical changes arising from globalisation.

To achieve this goal, certain production processes will have to be relocated and dependence on certain markets will have to be reduced. More progress is required to achieve climate neutrality and avoid irremediable environmental damage by implementing upskilling actions to generate highly-motivating quality jobs.

In summary, advanced industry is not only about replacing traditional methods but rather about transforming these methods to set up a manufacturing sector that its more efficient in terms of production, society and the environment.

David Fernandez, is the head of the Sector dealing with Manufacturing and the MachineTool