Automation: The First Step to Industry 4.0

As a whole, the manufacturing sector has long treated Industry 4.0 as its bright-and-shiny, digital-first future. For medical device manufacturers, this end goal is no different, and is just as appealing, but medical technology (medtech) and medical supply manufacturers are missing a key element in the equation when it comes to carving out the path toward Industry 4.0—they’re thinking too small about what they can do today to impact digitization and thinking too big when they look toward their vision of the future. This results in an overlooked grey area in the middle; medtech manufacturers who understand where they are now and where they want to be simply don’t know how to get there. The answer, and first step, is embracing automation. 
 
Meeting end-patient demands for convenience and cost-effectiveness, achieving and maintaining compliance, and automating manual processes are critical to success in medtech manufacturing, but that’s not where organizations are focusing their efforts. 
 
According to our recent research report into B2B buying behavior, over 30% of professionals in the medical supplies industry believe cost-cutting and managing vendor relationships are the biggest hurdles impacting their organizations and job functions today. Naturally, they’re focused on solving these challenges, but this is too narrow an approach to be sustainable, and ignores many of the industry disruptors, like automation, that are already on the rise. As automation begins to impact the status quo, it will become increasingly clear that medtech manufacturers simply aren’t doing enough to take steps toward their Industry 4.0 end-goal. 
 
Innovation is the name of the game for many medtech manufacturers hoping to take a scalable and future-facing approach to their business processes, but innovating cannot come at the expense of mastering a solid way of working, and today, it seems that medtech manufacturers are looking too far ahead and missing the short-term opportunities on the horizon. In fact, our research tells us that these companies—despite the cost and vendor-centric priorities they are focusing on now—believe automation will be among the top factors disrupting their way of working within the next five years. 
 
Of course, cloud computing, additive manufacturing, and AI-driven optimizations are relevant trends to keep an eye on, but medtech manufacturers currently seem to have a laser focus on the ideal, long-term, emerging tech-driven future of their industry, and too little focus on its automation-driven short-term future. 
 
Fortunately, automation is poised to lead the way toward Industry 4.0, making it a no-brainer for medtech manufacturers today to start there on the path to their innovative future. According to MarketsandMarkets, “factors such as increasing automation in the manufacturing of medical devices and advanced technologies integrating electronics and medical devices are expected to drive the growth of the market. The increased connectivity and data-gathering capabilities of these technologies make it possible to build high-volume, regulation-compliant manufacturing processes with efficient inventory and production management.”
 
Automation, however, doesn’t just mean streamlined processes. While that is one advantage, automation also makes achieving regulatory compliance easier and more programmatic, and frees up time for medical manufacturers to work on more strategic tasks, like research and development (R&D). Per a Medtech Intelligence article, many medical manufacturers embracing automation saw order processing costs drop by 40-60% as early as 2017. This highlights the fact that automation is and has been an opportunity to be tapped right away that can pave the way for Industry 4.0-level innovation later. 
 
Although not enough medical device manufacturers are fully embracing automation just yet, they are understanding that they’re facing challenges that automation can solve—and they’re aligning their goals accordingly. Our data tells us that nearly half consider their top goal to be improving the efficiency of the purchase process throughout the supply chain. Automation is the first obvious step toward achieving that goal. It’s just a matter of time before it becomes medical manufacturers’ go-to first step toward innovation and toward Industry 4.0.