Dimitrios Spiliopoulos, Internet of Things Professor at IE Business School and Worldwide Lead for Smart Machines (IIoT & AI) at AWS, highlights the way forwards for the digital and green transformation and how engineers and business professionals can simultaneously adapt to automation and sustainability-driven change.

Manufacturing is an industry that will be fully digital in the coming years, while simultaneously onboarding sustainability.

There are already industrial machines connected to the internet by design and new sensors have been added to old machines so that we can better understand their performance and health. Industrial IoT (IIoT), smart factories, and smart manufacturing will eventually become a standard of the industry.

What does this mean for professionals in manufacturing? The answer is that they will soon need to deal with huge amounts of data that will empower them to make better decisions. In this fully connected industrial landscape, we can also add robots – especially collaborative robots – to the list, as well as 3d printing, VR-AR, and the use of artificial intelligence across all tasks and machines.

New tech, new skills, new jobs  

These new advanced technologies and automation require new skills for engineers and business professionals in the industrial sector, such as manufacturing, oil and gas, and pharmaceuticals. While they face their unique challenges and opportunities, both engineers and business professionals are impacted by how the climate crisis will drive change and a re-think of the future of work. In both cases, the future demands digital and sustainability skills combined with an understanding of change management.

In this CoBS Research Pod, Dimitrios Spiliopoulos, Internet of Things Professor at IE Business School and Worldwide Lead for Smart Machines (IIoT & AI) at AWS:

• Provides key issues and skills required for engineers and management to flourish in the coming change in the manufacturing industry
• Applies these in a reflective exercise for you, your team, organisation and sustainability
• Sets you a framework for an action plan to sensitize your organisation to the change, get to grips with the new skills needed, and successfully implement them in daily operations.

Download the CoBS Research Pod Redesigning Work for a Digital and Green Era

Useful links:

• Link up with Dimitrios Spiliopoulos on LinkedIn
• Read a related article: Is Information Technology becoming the next Oil and Gas? 
• Browse and download the full Research Pod collection (mid-page)
• Discover IE Business School
• Apply for the IE International MBA.

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