Smarter Ways to Transition into Smart Manufacturing

If you work in the manufacturing industry, I’m pretty sure you have come across the idea of smart manufacturing or smart factory. You know, the idea that manufacturing lines are capable of autonomously adapting to each product produced.

Yes, smart manufacturing is an appealing idea, but it is no small feat to accomplish. In this blog post, I will share some tips that can facilitate your transition to smart manufacturing.

Look past the hype

We live in a strange era. We are all looking for a magical cure for our problems, and we, as individuals and organizations, have a tendency to chase one methodology or technology after another in search for that remedy. We regularly go after what is most popular at the time, without a true understanding of the impact it has on our lives or business. We act like a flock of birds, and follow the leaders.

Applying new technologies or methodologies should be a means to an end, but often becomes an end in its own right. When this happens, the focus shifts away from achieving the targeted business benefits, and in the end all you might have to show for your effort is wasted time and money. Have you ever thought about how to avoid this?

Well, to begin with, you need to have a clear understanding of your challenges, and how a given technology or methodology could help you overcome those challenges. Remember your strategic objectives, and keep your eye on the ball.

Don’t get sucked in just because everyone else seems to be doing something cool. After all, this is what you keep telling your kids when they want to spend money on new trendy clothes or gadgets, right?

Benchmarking

Not knowing where to start is a common problem in any transformation, and transitioning to smart manufacturing is no exception. If you’re not sure about what to do, benchmarking your ways of working against the art of the possible makes a great deal of sense. Why against the art of the possible? Why not against some other company in your industry? Simply because doing the latter may not uncover your full potential for improvement.

Having a state-of-the-art smart manufacturing reference model available to you, and comparing your own operations against it, will quickly uncover the changes needed for you to become a leader in your field. Have an open mind — the money might not be where you first think it is. Often you need to improve upstream processes, not necessarily the process where the problem manifests itself.

Establish a target state

Before you kick-off any grassroot changes, you need to establish a crystal-clear target. Use the art of the possible as a reference when deciding which capabilities you require, and the results of benchmarking to decide which business operations you need to amend.

It’s a good practice to define minimum and desirable capability levels. This will help you to keep the scope of transformation in check and prioritize your actions. Finally, build a roadmap showing how to reach the minimum capability level, how to scale up, and which steps to take to achieve your goals.

Keep it simple

This is a tough one. Time after time I’ve seen that companies have a tendency to consider the often complex legacy way of working to provide them with the edge over the competition. Thus, they often carry that baggage with them.

Smart manufacturing requires you to take full advantage of digitalization. The closer to out-of-the-box practices you can keep your digital solutions, the simpler the transformation. Believe it or not, but software vendors put a lot of thinking into how their software works for you.

Apply a good dose of critical thinking when designing your future way of working. If you cannot directly see a customization bringing in more value than the total cost of the customization will be, don’t do it. It will only become additional baggage to haul around.

If you want to catch fish, hire a guide who knows the waters

Executing a digital transformation is not part of the core competence of most manufacturing companies. Thus, it makes a great deal of sense to team up with someone with this competence. A competent partner brings to table a technology and vendor agnostic reference model that dramatically speeds the process of identifying and prioritizing improvement areas. A competent partner also brings in the expertise to drive all areas of the transformation.

A good reference model has the depth to help you quickly define digital threads i.e. cross-functional processes flow together with defined critical data requirements. Finally, a good reference model provides you with best practice guidelines for implementing these processes using proven IT/OT solutions.

Eviden’s smart manufacturing reference model has the depth to guide you through the decisions you need to take to achieve your digital transformation objectives. Equipped with an end-to-end secure smart manufacturing solution, you can easily meet your business needs.

If you are looking for the solution to your manufacturing business’ smart transformation needs, give us a call. We can help you catch a big one!