Industrial robots are empowering manpower efficiency in the field of product development. The evolution of the Industry 4.0 metaverse has revolutionised the manufacturing landscape, navigating through data augmentation, simulation, and hyper-personalisation trends. In 2023, the Asia-Pacific region held a significant 33% share of the metaverse in the manufacturing market, a testament to its burgeoning industrial landscape, rapid technological adoption, and robust economic growth (Precedence Research). The game of manufacturing planning, with its complex facets, risks, and cost issues, has seen a surge in demand for the confluence of the metaverse and AI. Integrating emerging technologies like the metaverse is poised to accelerate use cases in the manufacturing industry. Infosys BPM has identified major challenges, such as poor inventory and supply chain management, a lack of demand forecasting, and operational efficiency, that can be addressed by adopting the metaverse.
A report released by PWC outlines cases of industrial metaverse use in the manufacturing industry: 1. Factory floor planning with simulating layouts, data-driven decisions, and IoT sensors 2. Digital Twin is leveraging the industrial metaverse, which is impacting their supply chain management. 3. Product prototyping with VR & AR 3D models 4. Predictive maintenance can set up an alert system to prevent potential downtime and unplanned outages. 5. Employees training for specific manufacturing equipment in a real-time virtual environment. Sony aims to enter the metaverse manufacturing space and has collaborated with Siemens Digital Industries Software to reveal its new headset at CES 2024. Meanwhile, Siemens shared that they will integrate NX Immersive Designer software for product engineering.
Metaverse unlocks new growth potential for e-commerce and market expansion by providing a virtual marketplace and showroom to demonstrate its products. Driving innovation, Metaverse and Web 3.0 redefine the segment for client experience to facilitate more informed purchase decisions and reshape India’s manufacturing sector. Beyond operational efficiency, it helps to track and streamline processes to schedule inventory management easily. From the initial inspection of the testing prototype to the final delivery, metaverse has left its remarkable footprint behind to improve productivity.
According to McKinsey’s Ward, BMW in the automobile segment used simulation for 6 months at their new factory, constructing virtual automobiles on a one-to-one scale within the metaverse before deploying the final layout for the factory. Based on the simulation results, the corporation revised around 30% of its design from the original over the course of six months. Still, it would be wrong to say that companies have explored the full potential of the Metaverse. Extended reality was never a new concept, but how humans interact with it will keep unlocking new use cases in manufacturing. We can expect more futuristic technologies that might expand beyond VR space and contribute to developing the industrial metaverse.
The manufacturing sector has several pain points address, including quality control concerns, the risk of product design failure, cost and speed of production, and QC and QA measures. Metaverse and industrial automation can improve overall production quality, accuracy, and timeliness for setting technological ecosystems. New concepts are rolling out through which physical products can be created through designs originating in the virtual space with a significant focus on process simulation and real-time monitoring. Global manufacturers will redefine their processes and create advanced models of production to revolutionise with a progressive simulation approach and structured system to prevent further disruption in the manufacturing industry.
