NTT DATA Business Solutions
Three Connected Manufacturing Techniques IM&C Companies Can Use to Increase Innovation
In today’s dynamic business environment, Industrial Machinery & Components (IM&C) companies face increasing pressure to deliver amazing customer experiences, quickly respond to new markets, and maximize operational efficiencies. This blog examines three connected manufacturing techniques IM&C companies can use to increase innovation and thrive in the new digital economy.
With new technologies, social media and smart mobile devices, customers have fast, easy access to information – and correspondingly high expectations. On the shop floor, intelligent machines leveraging the Internet of Things (IoT) connect with customers and other stakeholders – yielding valuable customer and operational data.
These Connected Manufacturing trends mark a departure from the traditional focus solely on manufacturing and distribution. Welcome to the digital economy.
Everything is connected
The digital economy is inescapable. Your customers want real-time updates about their orders. Shop floor personnel need to proactively maintain production equipment. Executives must track global distribution. That means IM&C companies need the ability to connect and extend business processes across trading partners, from suppliers to end consumers.
In the digital marketplace, product innovation is no longer a top-down, internal process, but an ongoing collaboration between IM&C companies and their customers, suppliers and employees. As the supply chain becomes more demand driven, short time to market for new offerings is an essential ingredient for growth.
By adopting new digital technologies, IM&C companies can develop connected products, improve asset utilization, gain deeper insights into customer behavior, and boost business performance.
Three techniques to embrace transformation and leverage connected manufacturing
The digital trend enables more than just technological innovation. To get the full value of the technology, companies also need to adopt processes and practices that enable them to harvest massive amounts of customer and machine data, and turn it into actionable information.
Here are three ways you can lead your company’s operations into the digital age:
- Connect your products – Technology is a key component of any digital transformation. One critical shift to a digital business involves embedding your products with connectors and sensors. Connected products will create stronger customer relationships and more profitable business models.
- Incorporate the Internet of Things (IoT) – The Internet of Things connects people, machines, products, and services to streamline the flow of information, enable real-time decisions, and enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.
- Harness Big Data with analytics – Through enhanced data access and analytical capabilities, IM&C organizations can gain the instant insight they need. Companies that successfully build up their big data analytical capabilities can set themselves far apart from the competition.
That’s why innovative businesses are abandoning growth-impeding analog processes, and embracing technology solutions that extend current enterprise systems and fully enable digital business operations. By leveraging new technologies and digital processes, industrial manufacturing enterprises can more effectively collect, distribute, analyze, and use their data.
Equipped to thrive in the digital economy
For companies that take full advantage of new digital opportunities, leveraging the digital economy means more competitive business models, enhanced networking with trading partners, improved manufacturing operations and deeper, more valuable customer relationships.
Making the digital business transformation enables:
- Rapid access to data across all business operations
- Ability to leverage and learn from critical data
- Getting data to the right people in real time, and at the point of value creation
- Greater accuracy across the value chain
With accurate information, customers know exactly where their orders are and when they’ll arrive; supply chain professionals can monitor distribution schedules, quickly spot potential problems, and respond cost effectively; shop floor personnel can proactively manage machine maintenance and improve asset utilization. Digital business transformation helps industrial organizations boost efficiency, customer satisfaction, product innovation and profitability. This is the era of connected manufacturing.
Find out how your company can reap the rewards of digital transformation — get the NTT DATA Business Solutions industry insight white paper, Three Ways Innovative IM&C Companies are Transforming their Businesses.