# Smart Manufacturing Application in Precision Manufacturing
## 6 Outlook on Future Work
### Integration Stage  
As more smart manufacturing applications are implemented throughout the digital transformation and industry 4.0 journey, the IT, OT, and IIoT systems will grow and become part of the manufacturing system architecture, which, as a result, makes the vertical and horizontal integration of such systems even more complex. Significant challenges are associated with interoperability, scalability, and security as a result of the various digital threads needed to integrate these systems. However, connectivity and integration architectures and frameworks have further advanced over time to overcome system integration and data management challenges in order to avoid \"data spaghetti\", a term that refers to the various digital threads connecting and integrating systems in a non-systematic and a complex manner.  
To address such challenges, the Unified Namespace (UNS) is a leading framework that serves as a single source of truth for all data and information across an enterprise through a structured, dynamic, and centralized environment where data from various sources (e.g., PLCs, SCADA systems, MES, ERP) are continuously updated and made accessible with greater scalability and security [38]. This framework paves the way for more connected and integrated data-driven enterprises, which are essential for a thriving industry 4.0. It is also a stepping stone towards advanced applications like AI and machine learning in manufacturing. It provides the necessary infrastructure for these technologies to access a wide range of data, learn from them, and offer real-time recommendations for process optimization. The UNS framework can potentially be used to optimize the integration stage by setting a centralized environment to collect and manage data collection from the IT/OT systems (e.g., Smooth Monitor AX, ERP, SMAS), IIoT sensors, and gateways on the factory floor, which can be shared when required using a common data transfer protocol, for example, the lightweight-based messaging protocol Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) [39]. This overcomes the challenges associated with the direct connection and integration between each IT/OT system and gives flexibility in replacing or scaling systems without affecting the mechanics of data interoperability. If such measures are considered for the integration stage, this will shorten the time required for smart manufacturing applications to be implemented, and implementation costs will be reduced, which will speed up the value creation and the business benefits, which all contribute to reducing the barriers to the scaling of smart manufacturing applications.  
Another limitation of this stage was the use of a technology solution provided by a start-up that lacked continuous support. The production management system \"SMAS\", which was implemented in the integration stage to orchestrate the data integration between the IT system \"ERP\" and the OT system \"Smooth Monitor AX\", was replaced by the time of writing this paper with another solution due to the solution provider closing, so they stopped supporting this solution. Technology solutions provided by start-ups are high-risk in the long term due to the unstable nature of start-ups; therefore, considering major technology solution providers with a history of providing well-maintained solutions is a smaller risk but comes with a cost. Another technology solution was recently introduced to replace the function of the production management system discussed in this paper with a cloud-SaaS-based solution with similar functions. Such implementation did not require significant changes to the data integration and connectivity architecture discussed in this paper but only to the data thread connections. This technology solution change can become common in the future in the smart manufacturing application market; therefore, considering a framework like the UNS for the data and system integration discussed earlier could reduce the complexity of system replacements and speed up new solution implementations.