Touted as the secret to Industry 4.0, smart technologies are already on your radar. But is your manufacturing landscape as smart as it could be? By investing in making your business’ IT even smarter, you can support:

• Increased IT, operational technology (OT) and supply chain efficiency
• Better visibility over resources, supply chain, workforce productivity and efficiency
• A safer workplace
• A leaner, more efficient workforce
• Cost savings across your entire ecosystem

“The right mix of technology adoption that strengthens the core (process automation, data analytics) while also pushing the edges can improve efficiency” ¹

Deloitte Manufacturing Industry Outlook, 2023

Underpin your IT strategy and investments with robust data.

Smart technologies can give your business the reliable, real-time data it needs to bolster strategic decisions and investments. With insights from artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies, you can:

• Identify areas for improvement and optimisation and guide future investments
  
• Predict and forecast key elements such as demand and supply 
• Model any changes to your IT, OT or facilities before making them

Help reduce costs and drive efficiency across your business.

You could help make your business more cost-effective and efficient by harnessing the power of smart technologies throughout your IT infrastructure. 

By utilising automation and IIoT technologies such as intelligent sensors, you can enable predictive maintenance of OT across your facilities. Predictive maintenance technologies continuously gather and interpret data to assess the efficiency of machinery and predict when that machinery is likely to stop working. This can enable the reduction of costly scheduled maintenance and the potential downtime that comes with it.

AI can collect and analyse data from across your business and supply chain in real-time, giving you suggestions on more cost-effective suppliers and advising you on where costs can be reduced. By supporting them with this technology, you can enable managers across the business to make better-informed decisions. 

You can also use AI to analyse market trends and historical data to predict demand. Paired with intelligent sensors, this can help your plant operations managers balance inventory, aiding in reducing the costs associated with overstocking and stockouts, and optimising factory space.

Boost business resilience, productivity and agility.

With materials shortages, skills shortages and other supply chain issues causing disruption in the manufacturing industry across the globe, it’s essential for manufacturers to focus on building resilience and agility. Smart technologies can greatly help. To name a few use cases:

• You could use robotic process automation (RPA) to enable a leaner, more efficient workforce, lessening the impact of skills shortages
  
• You could leverage insights gleaned from AI technologies to diversify your supplier network and inform your supply chain resilience strategies
• You can use AI and IIoT technologies such as intelligent sensors and RFID tags to gain insights into your transportation and logistics, enabling the mitigation of delays and disruptions

“Manufacturers have increased their digital investment over the past few years and accelerated the adoption of emerging technologies. Companies with higher digital maturity have shown greater resilience” ²

- Deloitte 

Automating time-consuming, repetitive and manual processes with RPA can take the strain off your workers and free up their time for more strategic work. By supporting your workforce with these technologies, you can enable a leaner workforce, helping to mitigate the shortage of skilled workers. For example, robots and autonomous mobile robots can pick and pack orders effectively and efficiently, reducing the need for human involvement.

AI can provide the insight and forecasting needed to diversify your supply chain and work beyond your Tier 1 suppliers. By supporting this diversification, you can help reduce the impact of supply shortages and logistics disruptions.

When we pair intelligence from technology with humans, we can reach new levels of productivity, efficiency and foresight. With an IT strategy focused on harnessing the potential of smart technologies, businesses can see game-changing improvements across their entire ecosystem, from supply chain to finances. Help your business run like a well-oiled machine and explore the possibilities.

We’ve worked with many manufacturers and helped them leverage the potential of smart technologies. Our industry experts have decades of relevant experience, enabling them to provide practical and effective advice. 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.