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To paraphrase Mark Twain, “reports of the death of Canadian manufacturing are greatly exaggerated.” The Canadian Manufacturing Coalition estimates the country’s manufacturing sector contributes $166-billion to the economy annually — about 14% of GDP — and the Industrial Internet revolution offers the potential to boost those numbers significantly.

Manufacturers can make more intelligent decisions about their industries by adopting the use of advanced sensors and data analytics that will help machinery — particularly machinery with spinning components — to operate more efficiently and consume less energy. From motors and engines to mills, lathes, kilns and printing presses, sensors will transmit thousands of reports per second to operators who will use advanced analytic software to process that data.

The result will be business intelligence allowing operators to run machines more efficiently, improve maintenance protocols and optimize equipment life cycles.

If natural-gas-fired electrical plants and oil and gas industry suppliers and refineries adopt similar Industrial Internet technologies, resulting in just one per cent efficiencies, energy prices will stabilize as supplies available to manufacturers expand.

Future manufacturing processes will generate even greater efficiencies but will rely more heavily on the precise integration of data with the manufacturing process.

The development of 3-D printing, for example, will allow manufacturers to produce three-dimensional objects of almost any shape by applying successive layers of materials to the item according to detailed digital models. 3-D printers can already produce single objects as cheaply as thousands with virtually no material waste. By eliminating the advantages of economies of scale and virtually eradicating long-distance delivery costs, this technology offers a potential seismic shift from overseas manufacturing to the domestic sphere.

The development of nano-scale manufacturing technology promises to take this revolution further, by allowing manufacturers to precisely assemble complex products — even fully functional electronics — on a molecule-by-molecule basis.

The Canadian economy is one of the most advanced in the world. That’s precisely why Canadian innovators need to adopt the tools of the Industrial Internet revolution to push the boundaries of a traditional economy to the next level.