Many aspects of conventional manufacturing are undoubtedly becoming antiquated. In the age of cloud computing, robotic process automation and data-driven decision making, it was just a matter of time until these technologies made their way to the realm of manufacturing in a palpable manner. That time is now, and smart factories are poised to gain prominence in the coming years in a trend dubbed Factories 4.0.

“If you think about the smart factory, it’s really that transition from the old kind of analog manufacturing environment to the digital, digital operating type environment that we see today. So technology has really changed in the last three or four years. And as a result of that elevation of technology, we’re able to do a lot more on the manufacturing floor than we ever could,” said Jason Bergstrom (pictured), industry manufacturing lead at Deloitte Consulting.

Bergstrom and Thomas Hansen (pictured), chief revenue officer at UiPath Inc. spoke with Dave Vellante and Lisa Martin, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during UiPath’s Forward IV conference. They discussed smart factories in general, touching on major plans and announcements from the Deloitte/UiPath partnership. (* Disclosure below.)

A collaborative journey

The partnership between Deloitte and UiPath has spanned several years, during which time both parties have racked up more than 400 joint engagements with other companies, according to Hansen.

During that time, both companies have managed to gain deeper insights into what smart factories entail. This knowledge has culminated into a fully functional plant in Wichita which will soft-launch launched in January, according to Bergstrom.

“At the core of what we’re doing at the smart factory at Wichita is, we have 21 partners that are going to be participating out of the gate with the smart factory, with the intent being to show a seamless solution and actual end-to-end production facility that showcases 21 amazing technologies and partners,” Bergstrom explained.

The collaborative effort will be led by Deloitte. It will hone in on the verticals in which Deloitte and UiPath have found recent success, one of which will, of course, be manufacturing, according to Hansen.

‘Automation plays a key, key part of Smart Factory,” Hansen declared. When you think about it, the evolution of work, there’s so much boring, mundane work out there. Humankind is better served spending their time and effort on the non-mundane, on the innovative, on the creative. And that’s what we’re trying to ensure, that the humans in the loop, so to speak, are focused on the innovative work — the creative work. We have software robots, RPA automation, to handle all that boring, mundane work.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of UiPath’s Forward IV conference. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the UiPath’s Forward IV conference. Neither UiPath Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE