Evolution mostly happens in a transitory fashion, with developing technology empowering systems to meet the changing demands of the times. In a world where change is the only constant, it’s the pace and scale of change that defines transitory evolution. This is evident in the evolution of smart economies. While the unprecedented challenges have accelerated the transition to smart economies, it is the impending threat of climate change and enabling capabilities of advanced technologies which had originally triggered the transition. Therefore, it is essential to keep the larger goals of sustainability in sight.
In the evolution to become smart economies lies the ability of countries to pursue sustainable growth, and one sector which is essential to sustainable growth is Manufacturing.
Smart manufacturing gains tremendous importance in the current times. Conventional manufacturing is dependent on variable factors such as market environment, consumer imperatives, and technology trends. The market environment is vulnerable to influences such as generation shifts, geopolitical uncertainties, ESG norms, safety and quality regulations and supply chain challenges. Similarly, digital technologies are also continuously evolving, with cross-sector implications, and both cumulatively determine the evolving customer imperatives.
In some of the conventional manufacturing set ups, a vast resource of site workforce can be exclusively focused on maintenance, which may get high and add to the total operating cost of a factory. Furthermore, there’s at least a 5% staggering loss of average production due to unplanned downtime. For sustainable growth, it is required that smart manufacturing systems are largely resilient to these challenges. Digitalization helps manufacturers to effectively manage various challenges, while empowering them with integrated and automated factory workflow, enhanced resource utilization, increased data assimilation and analytical capabilities, ensuring workforce safety, increasing efficiencies, and reducing emissions.
Digitalization helps people to achieve smart manufacturing in many ways, from process automation, which results in better performance, transparency and agility as well as improving human machine interface and data integration to providing a robust digital infrastructure for industrial information management systems and data analytics and ensuring operation and asset performance management.
Despite various benefits of digitalization, the biggest challenge in ensuring digital transformation for the organisations is the lack the right strategies. Their strategies focus on adopting individual technologies than solving business problems by adopting business transformational strategies. Some problems preventing organization from adopting digital effectively include multiple competing priorities and lack of strategy, technical skills, and management understanding.
Also, the low penetration of quality digital network infrastructure is yet another challenge, with 37% managers have poor understanding of digital landscape. Therefore, getting smart strategies right is the first step to digital transformation which offers tremendous benefits at every step of smart manufacturing and extended value chain. With Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure value proposition, the focus is on enabling manufacturers strategize the digital transformation, with a wide array of products and services that enable customers to improve profitability by more efficient operation and maintenance of capital assets.
Most importantly, in a world that’s under threat of climate change, it’s the evolution to smart manufacturing that can enable economies to minimize environmental footprint, while recording a thriving economic growth and fulfilling the needs of the people.
Furthermore, the solutions simplify compliance to regulations and are designed to protect people, data and assets. The connected and IIoT systems employ data assimilation and predictive analytics to improve decision making and efficiency and enhance user-centric experience.
What is most important for companies and economies at large is to focus on the right strategies before undertaking digital transformation in its evolution pathway to smart manufacturing.
– Senthil Kumar V, Vice President, Industrial Automation, Schneider Electric India
