How to Plan Successful Digitisation in the Manufacturing Industry

Industry 4.0 is here, driving the evolution to smart manufacturing through technologies such as the IoT, digital twins, cloud computing, and cybersecurity. With such massive changes to factory and workflow processes, supply chains, product development, and more, digitisation strategies must be carefully and expertly mapped out before a single step is taken. Here, speed IS important – but this must be balanced with care, starting with a tech audit and the development of desired outcomes.

Developing your industrial digitisation team

Your taskforce to manage this strategy should include your CIO (or a vCIO), Operations Manager, Maintenance Engineer, Inspection Manager, Product or Process Specialist, and a qualified IT partner/consulting service. This team will be able to:

• Define key goals and how to measure them
• Determine the potential business value of the process
• Measure current degree of digitisation
• Identify key challenges
• Identify stakeholders

Creating your digitisation roadmap

This is a complex plan focussing on the long-term goals of the digitisation process. It is a story of where the business is now and the steps that will be taken to get it to a successful finish line and sets stakeholder expectations. Key considerations that should be addressed include:

• Optimising processes before digitising them - Evaluating why things are done a certain way and how to make them more efficient before finding a digital solution that works the correct way.
• Implementing standardisation in processes wherever possible – This will support automation and lean principles.
• Set goals – This includes the vision of the project, different projects that will reach different goals, KPIs to track, system integrations, data flow, and user experience/benefits to employees.
• Setting the timeline – Having a clear action plan to define the optimal order of actions and projects.
• Utilisation of business intelligence dashboards – Delivering real-time KPI and performance tracking, reports to stakeholders, soft metrics (innovation, credibility, and engagement improvements), and how each project contributes to the overall vision.

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Selecting best fit technologies and software solutions

This is where the right technology partner is invaluable. There’s an overwhelming number of smart tech solutions out there that may look great but don’t offer the best fit, features, cybersecurity, or integration your organisation needs. Trying to build your own tech expertise in this area while developing a digitisation strategy is not only overwhelming, but also puts your organisation at risk of non-optimal solutions

By bringing expert IT consulting services in with a proven record for work in the manufacturing industry, you can more easily connect your vision and digitisation project with the right technologies and software solutions.

The team at Otto includes vCIOs, IT consultants, tech specialists, and more – all with great relationships with top vendors. We work to get to know your business and develop custom solutions – from strategy through to implementation and support – that make digitisation faster, reliable, and optimised at every level. We’ve got a proven track record working with the manufacturing industry, delivering Industry 4.0 solutions for faster workflows, automation, lowered overheads, reduced wastage, and robust cybersecurity.

If you’d like to talk about bringing digital into your manufacturing business, book a time for a no-obligation chat with me to see what we can do to support your journey. You’re also more than welcome to learn a bit more about Industry 4.0 through our blog.

Looking forward to hearing from you.