Many organisations are in the process of trialling new technologies, and some have even completed successful pilot projects.
However, this doesn’t necessarily always translate to success with a company-wide rollout, and even the most promising pilot projects often fail to make it into everyday industrial life.
This can happen due to a lack of vision and leadership, or technical issues, according to McKinsey.
Solving technical issues can contribute significantly to the success of a pilot project rollout, whilst understanding the current technical environment and its challenges can help organisations decide whether to even attempt a full-scale rollout.
Epicor has identified six key capabilities that can help predict whether a rollout will succeed and uncover areas where additional work is needed:
1. Ability to scale IT infrastructures
To fully leverage new and emerging technologies, organisations need an IT infrastructure that can cope with increased traffic, storage, and computing requirements. This is achievable via cloud infrastructures, since the cloud lets users scale quickly and affordably. A cloud strategy also lets IT teams focus on innovation, rather than daily management.
2. Ability to reach consensus
All affected business units and leaders need to be able to participate in decision-making regarding any proposed Industry 4.0 project. Effective decision-making requires broad access to all relevant data, including a consolidated view of relationships, and the consequences of any changes. A modern, integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) system can fulfil this requirement by providing a central point to capture and analyse information from all areas of the business and modelling different scenarios to facilitate more informed decisions.
3. Ability to change processes
Businesses that don’t change their processes in response to Industry 4.0 projects will neither reap the benefits of their investment in new technology, nor be able to compete effectively. However, if processes are interlinked and controlled by multiple individual solutions, changes to one system can trigger issues across others. Alternatively, it can be too complex and expensive to make changes to the central system, which means that changes can only be made by specialists. Businesses need to be able to control their processes with full visibility and flexibility in order for Industry 4.0 projects to work at scale.
4. Ability to connect production with management
Manufacturing execution systems (MES) need to be directly connected to a business’s ERP system so the organisation can leverage smart factory benefits across business processes, including sales, service and support, purchasing, and business development. This way, an entire organisation can benefit from Industry 4.0 solutions, and the return on investment can be measured to support future investment decisions.
5. Ability to analyse performance
An integrated enterprise performance management (EPM) system can help understand the precise benefits gained from innovative technologies. These key performance indicators (KPIs) cover all areas of responsibility, letting business leaders identify areas for improvement and build on strengths.
6. Ability to cooperate
To maximise competitiveness, manufacturers need to work closely with supply chain partners and customers across an extended value chain. These are morphing into multi-dimensional ecosystems that facilitate a higher level of collaboration and networking. However, being able to achieve this depends on having access to data and being able to manage data exchange seamlessly. This requires an ERP system that integrates digital twinning, blockchain, and IoT, into automated processes.
By assessing these six capabilities, manufacturers can gain a clearer picture of the potential for improvement and opportunity for growth provided by Industry 4.0 solutions.
This will let organisations make the right decisions when it comes to choosing which pilot programs to roll out widely, as well as how to do this for maximum results.
Basing these decisions on data-driven intelligence will provide the greatest chance of success in an industry that’s already highly disrupted and competitive and will let organisations determine the real return on investment with new technologies.
Greg O’Loan is regional vice president, ANZ, Epicor Software Corporation
