George Danner from Business Laboratory presented a webinar in which he explored the world of automation in the near future. George explains how different types of technology play a part in automation and how he sees these technologies help businesses run better, faster and cheaper.

Some key takeaways from the webinar are:

• Automation is on its way, and companies should be prepared for it.
• There are many existing technologies that are contributing to the move toward automation within the next 10 years.
• It is important to develop the tools and space to cater to automation.

Here are the different technologies that George said have the potential to define the next 10 years:

Optimization

One of the key components both today and leading into the next 10 years is the optimization of businesses. Optimization leads to finding ways to operate most efficiently while maximizing net profit. When attempting to find an optimal solution, George explained that there are three parts that must be considered: the objective function, constraints and variables.

Simulation

Simulation is the process of taking a system in the real world and creating a replica of it so that it can be repeatedly tested. For example, a robot that could perform a surgery would have to emulate the actions of a human doctor, so it would need to be tested multiple times before it could be trusted to perform the surgery on its own. Simulations could even be created to replicate situations that require human-like thinking, such as judgment or reasoning.

Digital Twin

The creation of a digital twin requires recreating a real, physical asset in digital form, which allows you to test things that you would not be able to with the physical asset. This process helps show that automating a system would work in real life. Creating this digital twin is a key part of implementing automation of a system.

Graph Databases

Graph databases are becoming an increasingly popular method of storing data. Storing data this way shows the information in the form of nodes, which are the pieces of data, and edges, which show the relationship between the nodes. When information is stored this way, additional information can be inferred beyond the information that is physically shown in the graph.

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Today’s technology can understand both audible language and typed text. There are several programs that can provide answers to almost any question, whether the answer is based on off-the-shelf data, real-time answers or answers that require more thought or calculation. These programs can compute answers much faster than a human could work through it on their own.

Blockchain

Blockchain is particularly popular when trying to maintain a supply chain. The primary benefit of a blockchain is that it is universal, much like an email system, and it does not require everyone to be a part of the same database system. It is also widely distributed and there is a large amount of information that can be stored in the digital ledger.

For more information about how George Danner describes the technologies that contribute to the move toward automation in the next 10 years and how you and your company can prepare for it, check out the full video here:

by Shelby Klingerman, Content Curator |