Like many industries, the manufacturing landscape is transforming. Faced with the challenges and opportunities of industry 4.0, sustainability, market shifts, and workforce decline – making things is not what it used to be.
With a blurry horizon, how can manufacturers anticipate the future to stay ahead of the curve? This is exactly why Sixth Sense was created: To look around corners and get an idea of what’s coming next, building a bridge between a new generation of innovators and the evolving global manufacturing industry.
We spoke with Senior Product Managers, René Cabos and Sashank Ganti from Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence to get their take on how manufacturing is changing and explore what the industry’s future might look like.
What does Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence (HMI) do in a nutshell?
Sashank: We’re trying to tie the whole manufacturing process together with one, holistic digital thread. We’re harnessing digital reality to optimise end-to-end processes and bridging the gap between design and production. I specifically focus on using advanced visualisation technologies – e.g., digital, virtual, extended, and augmented realities – to help customers visualise their business, enhance optimisation, and boost collaboration.
René: We build solutions that support manufacturers along the entire process lifecycle; from the first idea to the last quality measurement – as well as everything else in between. I drive the artificial intelligence (AI) vision and strategy for this, exploring how emerging technologies can be leveraged to help build our portfolio and make this vision a reality.
Which technologies is HMI currently focusing on?
René: Against the backdrop of a decline in engineers and workers, there’s an ever-growing need for automation. We need to fill the gap with systems that can do the work of humans. We’re looking into all matters AI – from ‘traditional’ machine learning to more sophisticated generative AI and knowledge graphs – as these tools can help us take advantage of automation to make manufacturing and its workers more sustainable and efficient.
Filling that gap is also about capturing more expertise within companies. When people leave a business there’s a lot of tacit knowledge exiting with them. We need to think about how technology can be utilised to capture that vital insight while they’re still in post.
Sashank: Facility digitalization and creating virtual environments of physical factories is an area of particular interest. With manufacturers wanting to validate their end-to-end process virtually – before anything is even made – reality capture is becoming increasingly applicable in the industry. It can help customers plan assembly layouts virtually, whilst keeping it within the context of the physical facility; reducing rework, waste, and friction between planning and production.
Another focus area is using computer vision to augment the inspection process. Traditionally, Hexagon has been focused on high precision validation of parts as they’re being made, but we’re also exploring how AI-trained models can help identify defects in production and get early process validation.
How do you see the manufacturing landscape evolving? How does Hexagon stay agile to what’s coming next? And which emerging technologies are you excited about?
René: Sixth Sense is one of the best chances we have of staying agile. Start-ups move fast and we want to leverage that. Sixth Sense provides a sandbox environment for us to collaborate with startups and exchange ideas. We can provide that helping hand whilst testing for opportunities to combine our solutions and go to market together.
I’m personally excited about the outlook for agentic systems and knowledge graphs – I think there’s an opportunity for Hexagon to explore these fields further.
Sashank: Manufacturing is about speed, agility, and bringing products to market faster. Sixth Sense is the innovation engine that opens doors to interact with startups, bring new ideas, and helps us stay abreast of developments. Similarly, strong partnerships with industry pioneers help us anticipate new trends and accelerate the value of our offering. And our customer engagement allows us to step into their shoes, getting a better understanding of how they use our solutions, where their pain points are, and what they’re trying to achieve.
I think we’re going to see expansion in digital capabilities for validation and automation. I also think the validation process will shift more upstream. By taking early advantage of simulation for the entire manufacturing process, product validation can happen before the first part has even been created. And by leveraging smarter robotics with computer vision, automation can be improved as robots interpret their environment and take action, rather than just doing pre-programmed actions.
Where do you see AI being most transformative?
René: Technology can of course be misused, but it can’t just do whatever it wants: its capabilities are predefined by programming. By the same token, there’s a lot of creativity involved in manufacturing, which computers aren’t very good at but is where humans excel. So rather than replace workers or make them redundant, AI can be transformative by empowering them and making them more effective.
That’s why the expansion of automation in AI is not about getting rid of jobs, it’s about transforming jobs – filling the workforce gaps created by demographic decline, boosting worker efficiency, and freeing up time for people to focus on creativity by automating mundane tasks.
How can digital reality solutions be leveraged to drive sustainability and shape the future of manufacturing?
Sashank: Digital reality helps to bridge the gap between ‘as designed’ and ‘as built’. It enables us to validate digital assets without having to create physical prototypes, testing before we build, capturing issues early on, detecting problems in real time, and reducing unnecessary costs and waste.
We can try to design a perfect process, but things often don’t match the physical reality on the factory floor. If we can close the distance between the virtual and physical elements by modelling both in the same digital environment, the reliability and confidence in what’s simulated and validated increases.
Thank you to René and Sashank for sharing your perspectives with the Sixth Sense community.