Every manufacturer today is looking to build a smart and sustainable factory to enhance workplace safety and efficiency, minimize costs and errors, and optimize every stage of the supply chain. But carving a resilient and sustainable future doesn’t come easy. In the manufacturing industry, there are several unique challenges to the successful implementation of smart factories that require attention to detail.
We got in touch with Akhilesh Nandwana, VP of Business Applications, to understand why the smart factory concept has become so popular, and the common challenges manufacturers encounter along the way. We also gained insight into how Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing helps build a smart factory using open standards and ecosystems.
Q: Why has the smart factory concept become so popular?
Akhilesh: For an industry that has always been vulnerable to constant disruption, the pandemic further exposed global supply chain challenges and industry vulnerabilities that put manufacturing efficiency and throughput at stake.
In such a volatile landscape, smart factories set the foundation of high efficiency and productivity by extending the capabilities of systems, processes, and people. Since they run on a wide range of connected devices that consistently perform at peak levels, they ensure production deadlines are met and products are brought to the market on time.
By focusing on creating an agile, iterative production process through continuous improvement, smart factories can aid the decision-making process via stronger evidence.
Q: What benefits do smart factories offer?
Akhilesh: Weaving an interconnected web of machines, communication mechanisms, and computer power, smart factories make use of advanced technologies to improve collaboration, analyze data, and enable automation. By eliminating error-prone and inefficient processes and carrying out preventive equipment maintenance, they help overcome production and supply chain inefficiencies and make the manufacturing organization extremely resilient.
In today’s age of high disruption, smart factories are particularly beneficial, as they allow manufacturers to:
- Bridge the gap between the physical and digital world and fuel more efficient production processes
- Digitize the shop floor and build a connected ecosystem of smart devices and technologies
- Collect and analyze data continuously from across the enterprise for timely and accurate business decisions
- Address issues proactively and improve manufacturing processes to respond to new demands
- Improve communication and collaboration between remote teams and inculcate a culture of shared success
- Make operations flexible, adaptable, and optimizable to evolving market trends, industry fluctuations, and customer demands
Q: What are the common challenges that come with manufacturing a sustainable future?
Akhilesh: Although smart factories help companies deliver capabilities that support core processes and requirements of the industry, the road to building a successful smart factory is rife with roadblocks. The top challenges that come in the way of manufacturing a sustainable future include:
- The presence of several siloed and disjointed systems that do not present an end-to-end view of critical processes
- The disjointed approach to manufacturing that does not connect people, assets, workflows, and business processes
- The lack of proper equipment maintenance that restricts devices and systems from operating at peak levels
- Poor security controls and inadequate security training expose the factory and the devices connected to it to evolving risks
Q: What is Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing?
Akhilesh: Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing offers a highly curated set of manufacturing cloud solutions that help securely connect people, assets, workflow, and business processes, empowering organizations to be more resilient. This cloud manufacturing solution enables manufacturers to
- Leverage a range of digital experiences that help in reskilling the workforce and digitally empowering them with capabilities that result in high levels of customer satisfaction
- Capitalize on new-age technologies such as industrial IoT, cloud, AI, and mixed reality to build and operate safe and agile factories
- Create more resilient supply chains and improve end-to-end supply chain visibility, agility, and profitability via intelligent planning and execution, demand sensing, and traceability
- Accelerate the engineering of new business value via digital feedback loops and unlock innovation
- Build capacity to keep up with new complexities, customer demands, market trends, and industry disruptions
Q: What role does Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing play in building a successful and sustainable smart factory?
Akhilesh: Microsoft Dynamics Cloud integrates people, processes, and products, providing a 360-degree view of the entire shop floor. Such visibility allows operators to identify problems and fix issues, enhancing workplace safety and workflow efficiency.
Leveraging predictive technologies, the cloud manufacturing solution helps
- Improve throughput, quality, and delivery while helping the formation of agile factories and smart manufacturing processes
- Simplify industrial security via continuous asset discovery, vulnerability management, and threat detection, safeguarding the business against evolving cybersecurity threats
- Optimize smart manufacturing processes using AI, improving production efficiency while also reducing downtime
- Integrate customer and market data efficiently to drive supply chain visibility, improve inventory management, and enhance business resilience
- Predict and overcome disruptions through enhanced transparency, improved planning, and better asset productivity
Q: How does Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing empower the workforce?
Akhilesh: Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing connects frontline workers, office workers, and customers with secure collaboration tools needed to support remote work. The cloud manufacturing solution helps redefine training, engagement, and knowledge transfer, allowing manufacturers to onboard employees quickly and help them build skills with custom, role-based learning paths
By empowering the workforce with the right skills, Microsoft Dynamics Cloud helps inculcate a culture of smart manufacturing, creating the agile factory of the future and driving new levels of agility, safety, and productivity.
In conclusion
Building a smart factory is the need of the hour, as it brings more predictability into manufacturing operations and unifies data across systems. Through automation, continuous data processing, and improved collaboration, it helps drive agility and respond quickly to market changes – without sacrificing innovation and speed.
If you want to accelerate innovation and build a smart factory, embracing Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing can help you set up a robust foundation of smart manufacturing using intelligent business apps and advanced analytics to boost profit margins and deliver effective customer outcomes.
