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Digitalization Is Inevitable Why?
It is inevitable for any organization to adopt some degree of Digital transformation based on organization’s journey, maturity levels and the time in which the disruption shall define the lead and relative pace to lead the market. Digitalization in supply chain shall have the largest impact on the overall reach to clients, happiness at user end and most importantly profitability of the industry.
IndustryOS focuses on the Factory / Commercial premises in the whole supply chain and enables variety of Digitalization initiative end to end. It also helps to initiate your journey to optimum Digitalization. (read more).
What is factory Digitalization?
Factory Digitalization is about combining traditional manufacturing processes accelerated with Advanced Technologies. The goal is to improve profitability by enhancing human efficiency, true data access to optimize decision making, cost reductions without a loss of quality along with opening a window of data analytics and future machine learning as added advantage. Also improved are efficiency and competitiveness.
With the business becoming increasingly Digital, the question is “When” a factory should Digitize, not “if.”
Digitalization is not only about the use of technology and automation – it’s about how people and processes align with newer methods of achieving Manufacturing Productivity, Safety, and reduced Operating costs.
The Need & Benefits:
Productivity and Efficiency gains – Managers can work smartly by getting an overall view while working in a Centralized Operated Factory. The workers can take control of the system in a moment if the need arises and do not need to be present at the factory for operations.
Data Traceability & Access – at each Machine & People level – With the IoT enabled devices, data collection and monitoring has become easy. For any deviation in data observed, data can be traced back to individual machines.
Connectivity – Connectivity improves the utilization of new technologies, helps in creating uniform products without any variations or deviations from the pre decided qualities and managers can Optimize their Operations to improve efficiency & output.
Accelerated innovation – Digitalization helps in speeding up innovations in design development as well as processes.
Reduced downtime and cost – With constant monitoring, managers can use predictive maintenance instead of reacting to break downs to reduce costs, energy usage and increase profits. The managers can plan for a maintenance of each machine according to the data recorded and previous instances of break downs.
Paper less improved human efficiency – With data being completely digitised and no lengthy excel sheets, the chances of human error come down, increasing the efficiency of the workforce.
Accurate Change Management - With Accurate and real time key data, managers can ensure that changes are applied smoothly & efficiently.
Data-driven decision making – With Real time data, Managers can make quick decisions & take advantage of the market volatility.
Improved safety management – With real time data, incident reporting, as well as updated safety culture culture will reduce accidents drastically.
Factory Digitalisation: Challenges
Choosing the right Technology : With technology, comes a huge problem of getting it to work with the legacy systems. Another issue comes in the storage of data such that it is stored securely but easily available when needed. It is important to understand whether to go for short term benefits or focus on long term goals in digital transformation that can bring out the full potential of the factory.
Reskilling the workforce & training : With a poor understanding of technology, its true potential cannot be achieved. It might even affect the productivity in a negative manner if the work force is not equipped to use the new technologies. Training and making sure that the workforce has the tools, knowledge, and environment to use the technology is equally important.
IT/OT Security : With an increase in digital data and real time information from IoT enabled devices, the risk to data has also increased. With so much sensitive data being stored, the attacks on data becomes inevitable. To safe guard against such attacks, use of proper security is highly important.
From traditional business model to value based model : It is a difficult concept to grasp but the global demands have made sure that its not just about cost of a product. It is more about the value creation and thus the importance for it.