As with any digital transformation process, the devil is in the details, and there are many potential pitfalls that can derail projects.
Road to maturity involves safeguarding supply chains, treating security with the same urgency as safety, for starters.
There is no shortage of competition in a global market. As a manufacturer trying to get ahead of the pack, automation can help with problems like a limited skilled labor force, quality control issues and suboptimal throughput. But the high initial cost and extended implementation time can be deterrents.
Manufacturers are facing shrinking product lifecycles with frequently changing customer demands. As a result, they need agile production and flexible factory layouts that can easily be modified whenever needed.
When drilling a well, clearing a forest or excavating a building site, experienced operators count on their toughest equipment to help them get the job done.
Most companies do not have a clear strategy for how they are applying IoT, Mark Weatherford, former Deputy Under Secretary for Cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, said at an exclusive roundtable Smart Manufacturing convened recently in Chicago.
On-time delivery (OTD), a measurement of the level of finish goods or services delivered when promised and in full, is a signal of efficiency that reveals how well operations is doing.
The technology behind the rise of cryptocurrencies is widely expected to bring ‘a common source of truth’ to manufacturing.
Cyber criminals are increasingly setting their sights on today’s digitized manufacturing industry as an entry point into government and commercial supply chains.
If you look at all the companies that were on the Fortune 500 list in 1990, “a very large percentage of them are not there anymore,” David Brousell, executive director of the Manufacturing Leadership Council, told people attending his talk on “Manufacturing 4.0” at Oracle’s recent Modern Business Experience conference.