Manufacturing Leadership Journal, with contributions from Connected Operations experts at PTC, recently published an article on how to avoid Industry 4.0 pilot purgatory.
The idea of digital transformation (DX) is becoming more broadly recognized and accepted but executing at scale continues to be a significant challenge for many industrial enterprise organizations. In fact, research from Gartner, LNS and reports from PTC show that only about 25% of manufacturers are expected to be in the scale stage of digital initiatives, meaning most companies get stuck after the initial testing stage and are not able to expand on their strategy or realize full value.
How do you avoid the dreaded pilot purgatory? The article states that in order to realize the full potential of digital transformation, manufacturers must take a financial-impact first approach. Often, technology is mistakenly the focus of transformation. This failure to focus on value means that projects can be isolated and may result in additional issues like failure to achieve strong ROI, lack of company-wide focus and resources, lack of buy-in and more. Instead, transformation needs to begin with a hyper focus on financial impact and prioritizing resources against high value uses cases that can scale quickly.
- Define the impact of your project by identifying value and the financial-impact first approach. If you cannot articulate how your initiative supports your company’s goals and how it will deliver financial impact, you’re in trouble!
- Capture value by identifying production bottlenecks and prioritizing the most pressing issues. You can see bigger and faster returns on investment by identifying weak links and focusing improvement efforts there. For example, identify operational initiatives and value drivers like reducing downtime, rework, or waste.
- Expand on that value by building a foundation for scalability including an ecosystem of people, partners and technology that enables you to iterate quickly. Once you’ve found value in one project, apply the relevant use case to multiple sites and opt for a simultaneous roll out.
Digital transformation is a tremendous opportunity for manufacturers of every size or level of maturity. For the companies and leaders willing to take a financial-impact first approach, they will outpace their competitors and realize the full potential of Industry 4.0 in months rather than decades.
Read the full article here. To learn more about game-changing digital transformation strategies, be sure to register for LiveWorx to hear directly from peers undergoing the same challenges, gain expert advice, and meet the ecosystem you need to engage with to be successful!
