E-book

Factory of
the Future
Achieving digital excellence
in manufacturing, today
 September Factory of the Future 2
2019

Table of Contents
01 / 03 / 05 /
Transforming manufacturing Connecting specialists From our factory to your
beyond Industry 4.0 in new ways across the factory of the future
organization

02 / 04 / 06 /
Empowering digital leaders Developing a truly Learn more
in manufacturing customer-centric
manufacturing process
 September Factory of the Future 3
2019

01 /
Transforming
manufacturing
beyond
Industry 4.0
A look at the pioneers who are making
the factory of the future a reality today
 September Factory of the Future 4
2019

Far from just a concept based on The “factory of the future” does involve
longstanding aspirations of Industry machines, products, and factories.
4.0, the factory of the future means going But contrary to past fears of automation
beyond the walls of production to optimize and robots replacing people, the factory
digital operations and transform the entire of the future is actually empowering
connected manufacturing ecosystem. people, including:

Where we once imagined a factory focused • Manufacturing business leaders using

on the digital, robot-driven production data from hyperconnected networks
floor, reality has transcended the factory to develop customized, meaningful
floor to include the entire manufacturing products and services
ecosystem—connecting employees,
• Factory workers using continuous
processes, machines, data, and customers—
insights to predict and prevent machine
far beyond what was once envisioned.
failures and improve operational
effectiveness
Among enterprise manufacturers,
87 percent say they have at least one IoT • Customers providing real-time usage
project in the learning, proof of concept, data and experiential sentiment to
purchase, or use phase.1 And manufacturers inform how manufacturers innovate
who have implemented smart factories are to support valuable experiences
seeing 17-20% productivity gains.2
 September Factory of the Future 5
2019

87 %

Enterprise manufacturers who

have at least one IoT project1

Smart factories

Standard factories

17-20 %
Productivity gains2
 September Factory of the Future 6
2019

Our challenge in the coming years is to

manufacture more aircraft faster, and
for that, we need to enable our workers
to be much better equipped and to be
much more effective in what they do.
We need to raise the bar.

Jean-Brice Dumont
Executive Vice President of Engineering,
Airbus
 September Factory of the Future 7
2019

02 /
Empowering
digital
leaders in
manufacturing
 September Factory of the Future 8
2019

Connected intelligent machines and IT Empowering manufacturing leaders hinges

systems provide continuous insights, on supporting real-time insights, and
enabling manufacturing leaders to make one way Microsoft enables this is Remote
better informed decisions with objective, Monitoring. Developed for the Microsoft
up-to-date market data; manage inventory Azure platform, Remote Monitoring
in near-real time; and revise processes and enables manufacturers to make targeted
drive new innovations to meet demand. improvements to business processes by
Such hyperconnected networks of free- getting real-time use, performance, and
flowing data will enable manufacturers to asset health updates from nearly anywhere,
work with shorter lead times, forge a tighter and use that data to optimize performance
link between supply and demand, develop securely, anticipate problems and solutions,
new business models as market demand and boost customer satisfaction.
and opportunities arise, and accelerate
new product introductions to market. The result? Improved visibility to support
proactive response across the business;
McKinsey estimates that 50 percent of the ability to make targeted improvements
companies that embrace AI over the next to business processes to save time, money,
5–7 years may double their cash flow.3 and resources; and new business insights to
spot trends and opportunities to advance
the business.
 September Factory of the Future 9
2019

50 %
of companies that embrace
AI over the next 5-7 years
double their cash flow3
 September Factory of the Future 10
2019

The ability to automate these transactions

across thousands of machines and countless
miles is transformational for this industry.
Now all parties involved can have immediate
electronic records of transactions, real
accountability in these remote locations,
immediate awareness for maintenance and
diagnostics, and new levels of information
about every transaction.

Doug Weber
Business Manager – Remote Application Monitoring,
Rockwell Automation
 September Factory of the Future 11
2019

03 /
Connecting
specialists
in new ways
across the
organization
 September Factory of the Future 12
2019

Today, immersive human-to-machine What used to be considered technologically

collaboration and advanced analytics are abstract or out of reach is now tangible and
enabling specialists—from R&D, to the available, supporting advanced problem-
production floor, to logistics and supply solving and reasoning with machines,
chain management—to prototype new simultaneous work across virtual and
designs faster and more affordable, build physical models, and effective cross-team
more useful products faster, and continually collaboration on a global scale.
support meaningful customer experiences.
In fact, 85 percent of manufacturing Microsoft is redefining the digital twin
executives expect human-to-machine- through HoloLens 2, which allows users
centric environments to be commonplace to interact with and improve full-scale
by next year,4 with an estimated 40 percent models in immersive mixed reality. Now,
of operational processes being self-healing manufacturing teams can create safe and
by 2022.2 flexible holographic training scenarios in
the real world, give clients 3D prototypes
One technology at the heart of this to visualize and inspect, and identify and
vision is the digital twin, which enables address problems before work starts.
manufacturers to simulate and iterate Processes that once took weeks can now
through the end-to-end stages of design, take days through this reduction in physical
production, and service with a digital prototyping.
representation of the plant floor, supply
chain, and product lifecycle.

Gartner estimates that, by next year, there

will be more than 20 billion connected
sensors and endpoints, and that digital
twins will exist for potentially billions
of things. And by 2021, half of the large
industrial companies will use digital twins,
resulting in those organizations gaining a
10 percent improvement in effectiveness.5
September Factory of the Future 13
2019
 September Factory of the Future 14
2019

With Immersive Competency, technicians

can easily take a new or refresher training
in a safe environment just before doing
a procedure. For a critical task that might
only be done every two or three years,
this focused training model is ideal.

Vincent Higgins
Director of Technology and Innovation,
Honeywell Connected Plant
 September Factory of the Future 15
2019

04 /
Developing a truly
customer-centric
manufacturing
process
 September Factory of the Future 16
2019

While factory workers, machines, processes, boost equipment reliability and stay
data, and other elements of production ahead of the unexpected issues that
support smart factories, empowering can easily derail production. By capturing
transformative customer experiences is truly customer sentiment, usage, and other data
at the heart of the factory of the future. and analyzing it with machine learning
An estimated 86 percent of buyers will pay algorithms, manufacturers can gain the
more for a better customer experience and insight to fine-tune processes and make
greater transparency.6 modifications that improve product quality
and increase customer satisfaction.
The desire to adapt to quickly-evolving
customer demands is nothing new, except Going forward, IoT-driven data and AI
now technology trends such as AI and IoT will bring new levels of performance
are being adopted and integrated into insight directly from customers for
ways that finally deliver on this real-time, customer-driven product design
customer-centric vision. and faster innovation cycles.

One example of how the customer

experience is being completely transformed
by these advancements is Predictive
Maintenance, in which manufacturers
 September Factory of the Future 17
2019

Buyers who pay more

for a better customer
experience and greater
transparency6

86%
 September Factory of the Future 18
2019

The Microsoft Azure platform makes it

a lot easier for us to deliver on our vision
without getting stuck on the individual
IT components. We can focus on our
end solution and delivering real value
to customers rather than on managing
the infrastructure.

Richard Beesley
Sr. Enterprise Architect – Data Services,
Rolls-Royce
 September Factory of the Future 19
2019

05 /
From our
factory to
your factory
of the future
September Factory of the Future 20
2019

Through a robust technology platform,

preconfigured solutions, and longstanding
experience as both a services provider and
manufacturer, Microsoft is empowering
humans to capitalize on the unprecedented
opportunities of the factory of the future
in three fundamental ways.

First, empowering organizations to achieve

breakthrough productivity with intelligent,
mixed reality, and cognitive services by
bringing together humans, machines,
and AI.

Second, building broader ecosystems

through partnerships that include
telecommunications, network, hardware,
and software partners.

And third, delivering a highly-flexible,

robust software platform that allows the
hyperconnected world to operate in
hybrid models, supporting IoT, people,
and services working together.
 September Factory of the Future 21
2019

Jabil has seen at least an 80 percent

accuracy rate in the prediction of
machine processes that will slow
down or fail.

Clint Belinsky
Vice President of Global Quality,
Jabil
 September Factory of the Future 22
2019

06 / To learn more about

Microsoft smart factory
solutions and the growing
number of manufacturers
Learn more innovating with them:

Explore solutions for

intelligent manufacturing

This e-book is based on Microsoft analysis of third-party data.

Sources include:

Hypothesis Group: IoT Signals: Summary of Research Learnings. 2019

1

2
IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Digital Transformation 2017 Predictions
Jan 2017 Doc # US42259317 Web Conference By: Michael Versace.

3
McKinsey: Digital Manufacturing Capturing Sustainable impact at scale.
June 2017

4
Eric Schaeffer et al., Machine Dreams: Making the most of the connected
industrial workforce. Accenture. February.
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Gartner: Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for
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