Status of Smart Manufacturing in the United States

Abstract

Programs in deploying Smart Manufacturing technologies have been under development in Germany, European Union, and Korea since 2011. This paper investigates the current status of Smart Manufacturing in the United States, and the trends in its technologies such as Industrial Internet of Things and artificial intelligence in standardized industrial robotics. In many other industrial countries, in particular, in East Asia, clear government policies and strategies exist that provide guidance and orient funding towards SM technologies, such as the “Made in China 2025” industrial policy and the Korean “Manufacturing Innovation 3.0” strategy. Although many efforts exist in the U.S. on the academic and industrial levels, that aim at increasing SM utilization, the efforts remain mostly isolated, and driven by the private sector without a clear guiding policy.