Digital Manufacturing
Digital Manufacturing
Digital Manufacturing
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In the current trend toward digitalization, manufacturers increasingly
rely on a range of technology platforms to help streamline and accelerate
their production processes. These organizations often deploy multiple,
single-use systems and tools, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), data
analytics, or Virtual Reality (VR). One of their goals is to better understand
and utilize Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) data. However, vendors sell
these technologies individually and since they lack integration, companies
are unable to capitalize on the information they’ve gathered.
It’s only after deployment that business and IT leaders realize the value and
effectiveness of a unified platform. Instead of achieving their goal of fast and
improved production and operations fueled by the IoT, these companies
become mired in pilot purgatory, unable to meet the digital demand across
their internal value chains and broader supply chains.
In fact, a recent report from McKinsey found that only 30% of survey
respondents transitioned diverse IIoT deployments into unified, large-scale
rollouts. In this white paper, we examine the reasons for IIoT pilot purgatory
and explore the importance of a single, unified platform for meeting strategic
business and manufacturing production goals.
Moving Beyond Pilot Stage Purgatory
Digital transformation represents a major shift and a top strategic priority for
manufacturers across the globe. According to IDC, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)
spending in discrete manufacturing will exceed $150 billion by 20221. The transition
from traditional industrial manufacturing approaches to digital platform adoption
offers the potential for significant value and meaningful ROI across all areas related
to the manufacturing process, from design and engineering to production and
customer service.
In general, IIoT systems span IT, operational technology (OT), and core business
functions and thus require broad stakeholder alignment. Success also hinges on
executive buy-in and forward-thinking leadership to spearhead these deployments.
True transformation is driven from the top, spurred on by the ability to communicate
the intrinsic value of the IoT and its potential for driving digital manufacturing at scale.
To ensure that the right information is used for collaborations across every
segment of a manufacturing company, IIoT data needs to be contextualized
and relatable. That is, whether the information is derived from design, QA,
manufacturing support or production schemas, it must be accurate and able to
be immediately consumed by the appropriate stakeholder.
The inefficiencies that manufacturers are confronting today are due in part to
the reliance on multiple, technologies and systems that lack a coherent, unifying
connection. By contrast, a comprehensive, unified platform offers a closed-loop
system in which all the constituents across an organization’s internal value chain
and supply chain can collaborate, coordinate, and work hand-in-hand using real-
time, accurate data.
For a manufacturer that supplies the diesel engines used in commercial vehicles,
innovation from engine design to production is critical. Deploying a unified
platform enables this manufacturer to boost both productivity and efficiency. The
company has advanced from producing ten engines per hour to forty. In addition,
That’s partly the concept behind digital twin technology. Using a complex array
of software-based systems, companies can create digital twins to accurately
duplicate and simulate the real-world properties and performance of individual
products, manufacturing processes or entire plants. This digitally informed design
approach eliminates the need for physical prototypes, reduces development time,
improves overall quality and enables faster design iterations. It’s a revolutionary
approach that enables manufacturers to capitalize on real-time data, making
design changes as needed or in response to customer feedback.
In the same way, a unified IIoT platform enables manufacturers to access, monitor
and control their production processes. It offers a consistent, uniform way to deal
with all the data challenges that manufacturers face across their supply chains.
Within the manufacturing environment, a single platform integrates a range of
applications that rely on diverse data streams, whether they’re focused on design,
operations, or testing and analysis.
Outlook
As manufacturers assess their digital transformation efforts and formulate their
IIoT goals, they face questions over the business value of single-use technology
deployments and dead-end IIoT data. In many instances, they must overcome
significant obstacles coordinating platforms, scaling accordingly and integrating
diverse data streams. As a result, these manufacturers are often unable to
capitalize on their digitalization efforts and risk falling behind the competition.
According to recent market analysis, by 2020 half of IoT spending (50%) will be
driven by the manufacturing, transportation, and logistics sectors2.
1. IDC Forecasts Worldwide Technology Spending on the Internet of Things to Reach $1.2 Trillion in 2022.
https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS43994118.