CFX: The Next Step Toward the Future of Factories
For the past two to three years, almost every exhibitor in almost every trade show focused on the electronics manufacturing industry has an “Industry 4.0 Compatible” sign in their booth. As of today, the best question to ask is, “Compatible with what?” There has really been no standard yet developed toward this goal, and Industry 4.0 has been just a buzz word.
But for the first time in the industry, a common machine communications standard for the electronics assembly supply chain is a reality, edging the industry closer to the vision of a smarter factory.
This marks the industry’s introduction to a true Industrial IoT standard. Rather than being constrained by legacy data formats and content that machine engineering teams created many years ago, which were all OK in their day before the modern digital needs of customers was conceived, IoT data is now available that can support the most ambitious of Industry 4.0 projects.