Global manufacturing is modernizing and adopting Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing in their factories. The new factories of the future are being envisioned to deliver innovative old and new smart products to satisfy and service demanding customers across the globe. These factories shall depend on extended global supply and local chains and manufacturing. Digital and manufacturing transformations are being pursued to enhance competitiveness, increase service revenue, and servitization of manufacturing to improve profits. This change depends on exploiting the rapidly evolving new technologies, Cyber-Physical Systems, and robust state-of-the-art ICT networks connecting all customers, assets, design, manufacturing, and suppliers participating in the global value chain.
Another very important caveat is that security for 5 G networks and deployments is a given ( Indispensable) especially when factories of the future envision managing complex chemical and biochemical processes in real-time. The nature of cyber threats is very real, complex, and malicious, by state and private actors and needs to be addressed at the very inception of the implementations. Though many Telecom participants are hyping 5-G; the standards are not yet established and proven out. This is a serious concern in the context of the US President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee told him in November 2018, “The cybersecurity threat now poses an existential threat to the future of the Nation.”
