Bahrain has announced the launch of (iFactories), a national initiative to support the movement of the industrial sector towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0).The initiative is aimed at assessing the readiness of factories, measuring their level of digital maturity, and enabling them to invest in technology infrastructure and manufacturing automation, which is one of the pillars of the industrial sector's strategy (2022-2026), reported BNA.Unveiling the key initiative, Abdullah bin Adel Fakhro, Minister of Industry and Commerce, said in strategic partnership with Tamkeen, it aims to transform 300 factories into smart factories by 2026. It seeks to adopt the best regional and global practices in managing production lines to ensure the sustainability of the industrial sector’s resources, raise its productivity, increase its efficiency, and reduce dependence on unskilled manpower, and shift towards automation and modern technologies, to create promising job opportunities for citizens, he stated.During the event, Dr. Khaled Fahad Al Alawi, Assistant Undersecretary for Industrial Development, gave a brief presentation on iFactories, indicating that it will be based on the (SIRI) index, the latest international standard for evaluating factories in terms of applying the practices and tools of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.Al Alawi pointed out that the factory transformation process falls in 4 steps, reported BNA.In the evaluation stage, the ministry will provide advisory and technical support to conduct self-evaluation.This will be followed by the actual evaluation by accredited evaluators, which will move the factory to the design stage to develop a digital transformation plan, considered as the basis for the empowerment stage, he explained.Through this, factories will be able to obtain support and incentives. The fourth step is the development phase, where the ministry will, through its tools, monitor the transformation process through performance monitoring tools and measure its indicators, he added. (ICE Doha)

Fonte notizia: Trade Arabia News