For anyone in manufacturing or fulfillment, the current topic of conversation is Factory 5.0, also called Industry 5.0.
While Factory 4.0 focused on how technology and data can make factories more efficient, Factory 5.0 focuses on collaboration between people and advanced technologies like [AI](https://www.fastcompany.com/section/artificial-intelligence), robotics and advanced automations. Factory 5.0 asks: How can technology make our factories more human, sustainable and resilient? Factory 5.0 is a manufacturing paradigm that places human well-being, environmental stewardship, and operational resilience on equal footing with economic efficiency.
I say this as someone who’s commissioned approximately 30 factories with Chang Robotics since 2017. This isn’t creating PowerPoints about factories. It isn’t posting tweets about factories. These are actual factories, where our team is standing next to the owner when he presses the button to turn the factory on.
My perspective is vital to the future of manufacturing.
To my knowledge, most of the people talking about how to reindustrialize America have never built a factory. Most conversations about the future of manufacturing are happening far away from manufacturing. They’re happening in conference rooms. They’re happening on social media. New factories are being designed by consultants in tight suits writing slide decks, and people who confuse a machine shop with a factory. With all due respect, these people never stood on the factory floor when something went wrong at 2 a.m.
And yet the stakes have never been higher. We find ourselves in an era when the U.S. is trying to expand manufacturing across aerospace, automotive, pharmaceuticals, and advanced materials all at once. There is ample demand.
Our challenge is in building enough productive capacity. In a word: throughput.
This is a vitally important inflection point, as it is forcing us to think about automation—and factories themselves—in much different ways.
For decades, industrial progress was measured by how much human labor could be replaced by automation. The goal was efficiency, and automation has eliminated repetitive tasks. Software has digitized workflows. Connected systems have given us unprecedented visibility into operations. Each step delivered enormous gains. But something else happened along the way. With the advent of robotics, conversations focused on what jobs robots would replace.
It’s an understandable concern. Every week seems to bring an onslaught of new videos of humanoid robots walking, lifting boxes, or performing task once reserved for humans. The technology is impressive and robotics is cool.
But we’re missing the bigger story. Many factory designers—and organizations themselves—have become so focused on replacing work they’ve stopped asking whether the work should exist in the first place.
If the goal is throughput, the real opportunity in factory design lies in combining technology and human talent to achieve higher goals in ideal ways. I believe the next industrial revolution will be fundamentally different from the last one, just as each one before it changed what factories were capable of.
Yes, robotics is a big part of the new equation. So is AI. But the companies that thrive best will require more than the most advanced technology. They’ll also allow people to contribute in the ways no machines ever can.
Today, manufacturers across the country talk constantly about a shortage of supplies, raw materials, and the never-ending struggle to find and hire enough people. Their challenges are real. But after working in factories, warehouses, and production facilities for years, I see a bigger picture.
Too many materials decisions are built on outdated assumptions about which materials are required and where they are from. Likewise, the perceived workforce shortage is often a lack of designing the factory around the ability to amplify the skills and value of the people they hire. That distinction matters.
The workers who thrive in Factory 5.0 environments won’t necessarily be the best coders or the best machine operators. They’ll be the people who can collaborate with intelligent systems, solve novel problems, learn continuously, and move comfortably between technology and human decision-making.
Factory 5.0 demands higher throughput through new and better metrics. It measures how many people the factory’s technology can help reach a higher potential. It measures how well the factory is designed to optimize our need and access to advanced metals, to chemical precursors, to food processing, packaging, and optimal delivery times. The organizations that adhere to this blueprint first and best will define and lead the next industrial revolution.
From my vantage point this is clear: Factory 5.0 is the only production model capable of supporting America’s reindustrialization. Matthew Chang is founder and principal engineer at Chang Robotics.