APRIL 2019 INDUSTRY 4.0
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turning point in the Fourth
Industrial Revolution as we
enter a new phase of impact
at scale across core industries.
These organisations are
found in both developed and
emerging economies – not just
high-labour cost environments.
They operate in industries
spanning automotive,
electronics, consumer goods,
pharmaceuticals, and more.
But more important than
their differences are their
commonalities. They share
a number of features in
their approach to creating
the resilience and agility
to weather approaching
storms. Their technology
deployments are enabled by
a strong focus on preparing
employees, customers and local
communities for the change to
come, and the scale at which
they have digitised is vastly
different than everyone else.
Lighthouse manufacturers
can offer strategies beyond
how to survive a recession by
demonstrating how to lower
the break-even point and dialup
agility levels in a downturn.
They also show us how to add
flexibility to our manufacturing
The three industrial ‘megatrends’ of connectivity, intelligence and flexible automation are key challenges
that will allow manufacturers across the world to digitise their entire value chain and, following the lead of
the 16 ‘lighthouse’ companies, move beyond the pilot stage of 4IR technologies
operations without the
need for the same levels of
investment in the technologies
required during the Third
Industrial Revolution, with
the result of overcoming
stagnant productivity levels –
particularly resonant for the
UK economy.
Let’s look a little more
closely at the lessons the
lighthouses can offer us as we
begin to chart a path through
turbulent waters.
Moving beyond
the pilot phase
Despite UK manufacturers
ranking among the
leading adopters of digital
technology, operating at 17%
of our digitisation potential
(compared to 18% for the
United States and 12% on
average for Europe), too many
UK organisations remain stuck
in a phase of ‘pilot purgatory’.
They are unable to capture the
value from digital technologies
because they are not
implementing them in multiple
use-cases and at scale.
Lighthouses provide us with
the recipe to move beyond this
phase into the adoption of 4IR
technologies at scale. By implementing 15-20 use
cases after brief pilot programs that are quickly
adopted at scale, they are creating systems
change on the shopfloor, generating meaningful
data that can offer a real – and fast – impact on
manufacturing operations.
Driving this ability to move beyond the pilot
phase is a clearly articulated and communicated
digital manufacturing strategy, in which
organisations are choosing to innovate through
either digitising their production, or digitising
the entire value chain, by employing the three
technological ‘megatrends’ of connectivity,
intelligence and flexible automation (box, above).
And all of this is underpinned by an IoT
architecture built for scale-up and connectivity
that offers opportunities for big data decision
making. This removes error and slack from
decision-making by creating one single source
of truth. Digital Performance Management tools
such as those used by Proctor & Gamble are
not the same as traditional dashboards that are
commonplace in factories, instead eliminating
curated data and human bias.
www.manufacturingmanagement.co.uk
“Too many UK organisations
remain stuck in a phase
of ‘pilot purgatory’.”
Wim Gysegom, partner, McKinsey (above)
/www.manufacturingmanagement.co.uk