Pentadel shares its insights on the Connected Factory in Manufacturing Today Europe magazine
While dealing with, and overcoming the COVID-19 crisis, will be foremost in our minds over the coming months, there will be a time when we will once again look to the future and how we can make our manufacturing operations more agile and robust.
There is much talk about what the Connected Factory of the future will look like and how manufacturers will embrace the changes that new industrial technology will bring.
James shared his thoughts on this in an article he wrote in the March issue of Manufacturing Today Europe magazine. So here we share a few extracts about the benefits, as well as the pitfalls and challenges, that manufacturers face in adopting Connected Factory technologies:
The connected factory will be put into even sharper focus as labour and energy costs continue to rise and global competitiveness intensifies. As manufacturers feel these burdens, they will no longer be able to put off the inevitable; having to install and use these new technologies to make their assets work harder and more efficiently.
For many manufacturers cost is still the single biggest factor in slow or failed adoption of connected factory technology.
In cases where they have dipped their toe in the water, they often find their own cost limitations coupled with a lack of a robust strategy, leads to poor decision making and outcomes. This can result in senior management refusing to sanction further spend and an abandonment or postponement of the project.
To overcome this, manufacturers need to approach and treat digitisation as they would any other capital project.
In order to give it the best possible chance of success, it is vital that they seek independent support to help them set clear objectives and targets and to ask all the right questions up front. Many smaller and medium sized manufacturers don’t have the level of expertise needed in-house to fully assess the project and don’t always know where to find it.
We have also seen how businesses can all too easily get seduced into procuring new technology without really thinking it through and nailing down the outcomes they want to get from the piece of kit they’ve bought.
There’s a myth that only big global players with huge budgets can afford and achieve connected factory status, but this is not true. With the right systems, resources and foresight in place, even small and medium sized manufacturers can and will begin to seize the opportunity for continuous improvement and leaner manufacturing through advanced data analytics.
We are likely to see the cost of the cost of this technology fall over the coming decade and as pressures of energy costs, sustainability and labour intensify, more manufacturers will be turning to technology.
The full article ‘The Right Resources’ is available to read in the features section in Manufacturing Today Europe.