Digital Transformation is a blend of conventional manufacturing process upgraded with new propelling technologies, cooperating to drive producing forward and address failures in the current area.
Innovation and software will have an immense task to carry out, incorporating into all areas of the business changing conventional cycles to change how a business works and convey more an incentive to clients.
What is digital transformation in manufacturing industry today?
The state of manufacturing is constantly changing due to volatility in global, economic, and policy decisions. from trade policy to AI to IoT. Customer expectations and solving customer pain points are still the main drivers for Digital Transformation within companies.
With eCommerce for manufacturers, CRM, and ERP platforms, customer data is more visible than ever and cannot be ignored by manufacturers in their transformation initiatives. Digital Transformation is a combination of traditional manufacturing processes enhanced with new advancing technologies, working together to drive manufacturing forward and address inefficiencies in the current sector.
Technology and software will have a huge role to play, integrating into all areas of the business transforming traditional processes to change how a business operates and deliver more value to customers.
Smart manufacturing:
Powered by data and automation, Digital Transformation is transforming every step of the manufacturing process, from supply chain and enterprise to the shop floor and end-users. Smart manufacturing is connecting factories digitally, with central networks linking with machines, not only to automate but to learn processes independently, adapt to change, generate orders, understand quality issues and even assign tasks to other machines.
How leading manufacturers are responding to digital?
Many large manufacturers are starting to use data analytics to optimize factory operations, boosting equipment utilization and product quality while reducing energy consumption. With new supply-network management tools, factory managers have a clearer view of raw materials and manufactured parts flowing through a manufacturing network, which can help them schedule factory operations and product deliveries to cut costs and improve efficiency.
Smart, connected products are sending customer experience data to product managers to help them anticipate demand and maintenance needs and design better products. Players in a wide range of industries are deploying digital technologies in different ways to drive value.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers are using their deeper understanding of end-to-end processes to develop continuous manufacturing suites with footprints less than half the size of conventional factories. Some have even developed portable factories that can be built in 40-foot trailers.
They are also using the digital thread to improve quality control: continuously monitoring conditions within mixing vessels, tablet presses, lyophilizes, and other critical equipment. A few companies are now relying on infrared technology to detect counterfeit medicines and contaminants without the conventional destructive tests—at production-line speeds. As the industry brings these advances to the market, leaders will transform the Three Sigma industry performance to peer industry performance of Six Sigma or greater.
Leading consumer-packaged-goods companies are using digital tools to improve distribution and build bonds with consumers. Global fashion retailer Zara is already renowned for developing and shipping new products within two weeks. It is now using digital tools to respond even faster to consumer preferences and reduce supply-chain costs, attaching reusable radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags to every item of clothing in more than 700 of its 2,000-plus stores.
The aerospace-and-defense industry is using digital tools to integrate an enormously complex supply network. A modern jet turbine engine has hundreds of individual parts, for example, some of which the engine manufacturer makes in-house and others it sources from a network of dozens of vendors.
The complexity of sourcing can multiply quickly, since making one design modification can impact the manufacturing of many other components. Cloud computing-based tools allow suppliers to collaborate faster and more efficiently: an engine maker can share three-dimensional models of component design within its network, and each supplier, in turn, can share information about price, delivery, and quality. This type of information sharing, and transparency reduces the labor required to manage design changes, reduces the risk for the engine maker and suppliers, and speeds changes across the supply network.