Webinar: Planning the Path to Lights-Out Manufacturing

The idea of a fully automated factory is not new. Some companies, such as Fanuc and Philips, have been running fully automated factories - or lights-out manufacturing - since as early as 2001. Driving factors behind lights-out include increased productivity, reduced operational costs, improved worker safety compliance, minimized space utilization, and climate-control requirements. However, lights-out has seen limited impact in many industries due to technological, cultural, and financial barriers to adoption. With the rapid advancements in IoT sensors, big data, AI, and robotics, along with a recent acceleration of interest in automation due to the Covid-19 pandemic, there is no better time for stakeholders to get started on lights-out than now. In this webinar, we address enablers and challenges for automation, and the expected timeline for certain tasks to be fully automated.