Providing the core expertise to enter manufacturing 4.0

Reinventing his strategy to be on the forefront of Industry 4.0

Our Client, a worldwide leader in the manufacturing of production equipment, had devised an ambitious new strategy to reinvent and reposition his portfolio. He wanted to gain another competitive edge, but needed the expertise of an innovative, fast paced company: OWT. We therefore helped him refine his objective-strategy-statement and translate it into a first actionable project.

Creating the foundation of a new industry

The analysis of his strategy revealed that it was first needed to obtain an integrated production process at the Client's customers and to bridge the gap between their shop floors and the Client. For this, several of his customers were visited in order to have a user centric design with the right functionalities that would bring value to his customers while enabling the Client's strategy.

The main objective defined, from a high-level perspective, for this first project was therefore to store and make data available and to network his manufacturing products to the cloud in order to leverage that data. Some expected benefits are listed in the following non-exhaustive list:

• Shorter set-up and scheduling times for the customer
• Lower qualification level for operators for the customer
• Improved utilization of production capacity for the customer
• Larger product portfolio with minimal investment for the customer
• Increased quality and end-customer satisfaction for the customer
• Decreased scrap factor
• Provide data for other initiatives for the Client

This marks the beginning of an evolution towards an all cyber-physical-production-system.

Iterative Journey

• Strategy phase to refine the objective-strategy-statement
• Identify enabling initiative and how it would impact other projects
• Conduct a blueprint to define the functional and technical specifications for that initiative
• Analyze needed interfaces and responsible teams
• Interact and validate findings with several business and technical stakeholders as well as Client customers
• Prioritize features based on feasibility and urgency
• Suggest a roadmap for development to obtain results quickly to enable other initiatives to take place

Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0, also seen as the 4th industrial revolution, makes use of smart technologies like machine to machine communication or internet of things to increase automation, improve production and enhance flexibility. Machines are able to operate independently by communicating in real-time between each other and with the manufacturers. This “smart manufacturing” creates a bridge between the physical and the digital world, with the so called cyber-physical production system. Industry 4.0 has emerged thanks to the rise of new technologies like big data, IoT, artificial intelligence, robotics or cloud computing.