Despite inflation concerns and lingering supply chain issues, manufacturers are investing in their assembly operations.

Automation and sustainability combine to produce high-quality instruments in El Cajon, CA.

U.S. manufacturers have faced significant headwinds this year: supply chain problems, a skilled labor shortage, inflation, and the war in Ukraine. And yet despite these issues—or perhaps, because of them—manufacturers continued to invest in people, plants and equipment.

Brose Tuscaloosa Inc., Vance, AL, is the recipient of the the 2022 Assembly Plant of the Year Award.

As assembly plants become more digitally connected to both suppliers and customers, the potential threat posed by cyberattacks will only get worse. Cyberthreats to manufacturers are real, and the consequences can be devastating.

Assembly technology is wonderful, but it is not perfect. In some way, each technological process has a downside.

If the factory of the future will run on data, new types of hardware will be needed to collect, route, process and display it. That means more than just new PLCs, but gateways, edge computers, tablets and other hardware.

BMW has been at the forefront of Industry 4.0 for years. For example, the company was an early adopter of additive manufacturing, and today prints hundreds of thousands of production parts annually.