‘Digital’ in manufacturing is no longer an option – it’s the new business as usual
Some in the industry still struggle to develop an effective digital strategy – but it is clear they must make the jump to stay competitive. Stephen Fox, Business Development Manager at Columbus UK explains why digital is no longer a choice in manufacturing, drawing on the experiences and insights from digital leaders at top UK manufacturing organisations.
The recent Industry 4.0 Exchange held in Derby, brought together digital leaders from some of the UK’s great manufacturing organisations from Astra Zeneca, BAE, Dyson and GlaxoSmithKline to Jaguar Land Rover, Rolls Royce and Toyota. Hosted by the ‘Father of Industry 4.0’, Henrik von Scheel, the event brought together these industry leaders to share and delve into their digital ambitions for manufacturing.
The top three digital business drivers for manufacturers are operational efficiency, competitive pressure and profitability. These drivers are still the ‘business constant’ that will almost certainly never change.
But it was clear there is significant appetite among all companies for greater and continued digitisation. The event revealed some interesting pointers as to where manufacturers are in their respective digital transformation journeys – particularly now that digitisation is seen as a necessity instead of an optional benefit. Here’s the key takeaways on where manufacturers are focusing their digital transformation efforts, and current progress on the journey to becoming a truly digital organisation.
Digital transformation in the manufacturing sector is a never-ending journey of continuous improvement, but certain aspects are simply constants. What we do know is each company will be starting from a different position and level of infrastructure maturity, and that requires careful management. Green field manufacturing sites offer the chance to create a digital template while legacy sites are advised to ‘cherry pick’ from this template as their needs will permit without adversely affecting existing processes and operations.
Although the promotional language used among technology advocates in the manufacturing industry is largely unchanged over the past decade, recent developments in emerging technologies and their associated price points are seriously changing what can realistically be digitally delivered for manufacturers. IoT is in the driving seat.
Despite the emergence of further advanced technologies such as AI, machine learning and augmented reality, the top three digital project initiatives are firmly focused on generating maximum operational value from the Internet of Things (IoT), data automation and data analytics. Ubiquitous, low-cost connectivity and cheap devices have transformed the ability for companies to embark on IoT projects that will deliver genuine return on investment (ROI). This has in turn opened the door to the ‘data ocean’ that businesses now have to collect, automate and analyse.
This data ocean consists of unmodelled data gathered from every corner and department of a manufacturing organisation, stored in a single repository for future analysis. Applying advanced analytics tools will be the next step towards pulling valuable insights from this vast volume of data, whether this is to identify improvements in business-wide processes or pursue advanced applications such as predictive maintenance for manufacturing equipment.
Many manufacturing organisations are yet to adopt truly predictive processes and technologies.
