Right now, 15% of manufacturers are invested in IIoT / Industry 4.0 Technology. They are mainly large production and process facilities with large amounts of automation. In the next five years, that 15% is expected to grow to 65%. Experts say those who most quickly exploit IIoT / Industry 4.0 technology will receive the greatest benefit in their manufacturing operations and OEM product service. But it can bring with it a whole host of challenges, questions, and uncertainty.
From our Industry 4.0 implementation experience, following are the four focus areas for your effective digital transformations journey:
1. Awareness
Though too many hype and campaign happening globally for industry 4.0 / IIoT, except large companies who invested heavily on digital others are lagging in awareness of these technologies, business model transformation methods and its benefits. Company inspiring for the digital transformation should understand the following as a first step:
- What is the enterprise current level in Industry 4.0 ?
- How & where to start the journey towards Industry 4.0 ?
- What would be the road-map & priorities towards Industry 4.0 ?
- What would be the Business Case & Return on Investment ?
Picture source: Platform Industrie 4.0
2. Technology & Platform
- Some of the market research experts says that there are more than 700 IIOT sensors, edge devices, software, analytics and AR platforms are competing in the market. But they are isolated and not available as integrated platform.
- Inspiration to assessment to connectivity implementation to management of digital entreprise required skilled people in different domains and technology stack.
- Platforms are generic and industry segment focus are not much available which demands standards, policies and compliance for scalable and secured architecture.
Picture source: Machnation
3. Implementation
Digital factory implementation required cross functional team coordination like sales, engineering, operations, production, logistics, aftermarket service and ICT. Following key elements to be focused during the project planning and risk management according to your digital transformation road-map:
- Stakeholder strategic alignment.
- ICT infrastructure readiness across factory.
- Machine connectivity assessment & safe/secured integration procedures.
- Production downtime planning for machine to machine connectivity.
- Sensors & devices performance characteristics, warranty, gauge R&R and preventive maintenance plan.
4. Validation & Adoption
- Production OEE and equipment health real-time monitoring post deployment data validation and approval from cross functional team is critical to build trust for stakeholders and end user adoption.
- IIoT environment availability should be 100% to ensure the data accuracy and downstream analytics applications are efficient and providing effective business outcomes.
- End users and stakeholders have to be trained enough for effective return on investment on digital initiative.
We at Maxbyte Technologies helps manufacturers to transform their products and manufacturing operations digitally through our industry 4.0 assessment, edge devices and byteFACTORY SaaS platform to connect, insights and manage digital factory. Want to know more? click here.
