Automation used to mean a capital project with a three-year payback and a specialist to run it. That is no longer the shape of the market. Collaborative robots now sit alongside operators without fencing, and modular cells can be redeployed when the product changes.
Edge analytics is finally practical
Cheap sensors and on-machine processing mean you can now see a bearing failing before it takes the line down, without piping every data point to a cloud service.
Modularity beats optimisation
A cell that is 85% as efficient but can be reconfigured in a weekend is worth more than a perfectly optimised line that cannot move.