Manufacturing industries are finding themselves in a period of change being characterized by massive increases in productivity powered by technology. I’d like to highlight how manufacturers can use technology in a practical way so to boost productivity and build competitive advantage.
Historically speaking, technological change has been the main driver in the major evolutions in manufacturing; for instance, it all started with the first steam-powered industrial revolution (MECHANICAL | late 18th century), followed by electric power (ELECTRICAL | early 20th century), then there were the computers and www (COMPUTING/ INTERNET | early 1970s), and now we have reached what is referred to as Industry 4.0 (DIGITAL | now).
So Industry 4.0 or in other words, the fourth industrial revolution, is the digital transformation of manufacturing and the industrial value chain. Digital transformation goes far beyond using computers and is more about connecting vendors, suppliers, stocks, manufacturing, production, operations, logistics, warehousing, sales, marketing, finance with another so to optimize operations and business as a whole.
Technology boosts manufacturing productivity in several and potentially overlapping ways by simplifying tasks and automating them. A few examples include:
· Productivity improvements contain simple things like scanning barcodes and automatically transferring data instead of doing it all manually as well as automatically setting re-order points for inventory management; repetitive work can be done by robots which is common in the automotive industry. 26% of staff’s time is wasted on admin activities that could be avoided if ways of working were to be updated.
· Productivity is increased by connecting the workforce i.e. sales such as providing real-time access to crucial information such as stock levels, order histories of customers, and lead times of products.
· Investing in the right technology increases the efficiency of your workforce as business information is readily available and organised; the same applies to warehouse management as stock data could be viewed in real-time, products could be easily found in the warehouse and be tracked along its journey to the final customer.
· Analysing the data generated within a digitised production chain uncovers opportunities and risks. Predictive analytics can aid in inventory planning, waste reduction, and demand forecasting while predictive maintenance can aid in reducing maintenance costs (including numbers of write-offs and waste) and downtime by foreseeing machine faults and/ or repairs.
Industrial Tracking Systems (in short: ITS) makes solutions the Industry 4.0 way. We have come up with solutions that truly aid you (our customers) in simplifying how things are done by organizing and visualizing your data, and thus improving both your productivity and profitability.
We offer modular building blocks to optimize your business, including Track & Trace, Dashboards, Visualizations, Workflows, Reports, Process Monitoring, Quality Statistics, Predictive Maintenance, Blackbox, and Simulations as well as customized solutions according to your every need.
Do not hesitate to get in touch should you have queries or wanted to get a free quantitative analysis.
