Doing more with less is a key tenet of most business strategies. IT operations’ role in making their business even more efficient is huge. By supporting and leveraging smart technologies and intelligent systems, IT operations can significantly enhance efficiency and support their business in the journey towards Industry 4.0.
“The right mix of technology adoption that strengthens the core (process automation, data analytics) while also pushing the edges can improve efficiency” 1
- Deloitte
Efficiency measures often benefit sustainability initiatives too. By using fewer resources and ensuring your machinery and facilities are operating in an optimal way, you can reduce your energy consumption and waste generation.
Ensure connectivity and do more with your data.
When your workforce has seamless access to the tools and information they need, they can do their jobs easier, faster and better. With smart technologies and the right network underpinning them, your teams can work more collaboratively too. Integrate and streamline architecture, apps and systems with low-latency and high capacity connectivity.
“Getting the right data to the right people at the right time is key to enabling faster, smarter decision making, improving demand forecasting and meeting production plans. Attaining this will require extensive integration between operational technology (OT) and business systems (IT)” 2
By leveraging insights provided by smart technologies, your business can:
- Predict issues and mitigate them before they arise, e.g.– supply shortages or machine maintenance
- Plan budgets and resource allocation more effectively
- Forecast demand and trends, informing research and development strategy and plant managers
Artificial intelligence (AI) working together with Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies can continuously collect and analyse data. This gives your teams reliable visibility into how efficiently their people, processes and technologies are working. For example, AI can analyse transportation routes to provide suggestions of re-routes, helping products arrive at their destinations faster and in better condition.
AI algorithms can analyse customer and market trends to predict demand. This helps your business plan stocking and sourcing more accurately, using fewer resources. This in turn helps prevent stockouts or overstocking, helping optimise warehouse space.
Simulate and analyse real-world scenarios using digital twins, and predictively model changes before physically making them. By utilising data and virtual replicas, you can improve decision making and optimise performance with fewer human resources.
Make your cybersecurity more efficient.
Innovating with smart technologies and IIoT can be a double-edged sword. But it doesn’t have to be. Bringing with it an expansion of surface for cybercriminals to capitalise on and attack, smart technologies and OT can themselves make cybersecurity more efficient. This can go a long way in helping mitigate and prevent attacks.
With IIoT devices equipped with sensors and security monitoring, anomalies and security threats can be detected automatically. Responses such as compromised device isolation can be automatically triggered, decreasing response time. Machine learning (ML) can analyse normal behaviour patterns of IIoT devices and detect any aberrations and inconsistencies.
In addition, by partnering with the right network and technology providers, you can leverage their experience and resources to make your cybersecurity practices more efficient. With solutions and services like cyber risk assessment and consultancy as well as threat intelligence services available to be capitalised on, you can bolster your cybersecurity with a leaner team.
The role of IT operations in manufacturing companies is paramount in driving efficiency and future proofing efforts in an often turbulent landscape. The integration of smart technologies, automation and data-leveraging tools empower your business to optimise processes, enhance decision-making and foster a more agile and sustainable working environment. Align with overarching business strategies and objectives and cultivate a culture of continuous improvement and advancement.
Let’s co-innovate and leverage the power of cutting-edge technology. Together we can enable incredible, productivity, efficiency and resilience-based wins across your entire business. We know this because we’ve already done it with other manufacturers. Our industry experts have decades of relevant experience, enabling them to provide practical and effective advice. Then, our global network, computing and security expertise and extensive ecosystem can help you put those technologies into practice. We can help you de-risk transformation, accelerate change and achieve the promise of Industry 4.0.