Realizing the Digital Enterprise

Summary
Siemens was a global sponsor at ARC Advisory Group’s fifteenth India Forum, which drew close to 280 delegates. This provided Siemens and the other forum sponsors with an excellent platform to showcase their respective technologies and expertise via presentations and case studies. Siemens’ presentations resonated well with the forum’s theme of realizing the digital enterprise and sparked numerous discussions between sponsors, delegates, and the ARC team.

Siemens’ presentations focused on how “digitalization changes everything.” Digital transformation, enabled in part by the increasing convergence of operational technology (OT), information technology (IT), and engineering technology (ET) is key for all industrial organizations today. Across industries, end users make similar demands for technology solutions that provide increased speed, flexibility, quality, and efficiency; and these must operate on a foundation of security. Manufacturers must embrace technologies and transform their business into a digital enterprise. Ideally, this should extend across the entire value chain. The company believes that a “digital thread” connects manufacturing processes and systems; and the Siemens Digital Enterprise operates on this premise.

The core concepts of digitalization culled from the three presentations by Siemens:

• Smart innovations are transforming industry. The transformational forces behind smart innovations are: Internet of Things, Cloud, 3D printing, knowledge automation, and advanced robotics

• Collaborative strategies accelerate growth

• Digitalization will drive the future of manufacturing

Sameer Prakash, Head Digital Enterprise, Digital Factory Division, Siemens India Lights the Lamp

From left to right: G. Ganapathiraman, Country Manager, ARC Advisory Group, India; Andy Chatha, President, ARC Advisory Group; Vikas Deshmukh, Vice President, Technology Center of Excellence, Reliance Industries Limited, Hydrocarbon Business

Driving the Digital Enterprise
In his keynote address, Sameer Prakash, Head Digital Enterprise, Digital Factory Division, Siemens India spoke about how “digitalization changes everything.” He explained that Siemens’ Digital Enterprise provides a portfolio of solutions for the digital transformation of process and discrete industries.

Source: Siemens Presentation

A common digital thread linking ideation-realization-utilization enables continuous business transformation and compresses the innovation cycle. Siemens’ MindSphere – the cloud-based, open operating system for the IoT – supports applications that can analyze assets as they perform and support digital twins of products and production assets to provide insights to continuously optimize the value chain.

Mr. Prakash showed how Siemens has integrated its solutions for product lifecycle management (PLM), manufacturing execution systems (MES) and Totally Integrated Automation (TIA) suite of engineering tools through its digital enterprise collaboration platform, “Teamcenter.” This platform that is called the Digital Enterprise Software Suite integrates product design, manufacturing process planning, digital manufacturing, factory floor operations, and production automation, using Teamcenter as a single database for all information.

Smart Innovations for the Digital Enterprise
In his presentation, Srinath K. Narayan, Director, Strategy & Business Development, Siemens Industry Software India, spoke about how smart innovations are transforming every industry, from self-driving cars, to customized medical implants, pilotless planes, self-optimizing energy assets, remotely operated ships, and so on.

Innovations such as these are altering mindsets and business fundamentals. The products, business models, and legacy positions that once gave companies a competitive edge are now being questioned “Even if you knew what you needed to do, could you do it?” he asked rhetorically. Not only are today’s companies competing in a world of constant transformation; “the same forces transforming what you innovate are transforming how you innovate.” According to Mr. Narayan, “Digitalization makes the digital thread a proactive agent to drive new business opportunity;” and fully digitalized businesses deliver both product and process innovation.

Further, he spoke about Siemens’ Smart Innovation Portfolio and how it can give companies a competitive edge and support product and process innovation by creating a closed and integrated loop.

Siemens Smart Innovation Portfolio

This is based upon four principles that digitalization will provide:

• Engaged Users that receive the right information at the right time and in the right context

• Intelligent Models that evolve throughout the process with the information necessary to optimize themselves for how they need to be built and how they should perform

• Realized Products that achieve business goals through the integration of virtual product definition and real production execution, and

• Adaptive Systems that help to efficiently deploy solutions that are both cost-effective and flexible to keep pace with future requirements

Internet Provides Opportunities and Challenges
The last speaker from Siemens India, Sheetal Paralikar, Manager (Business Development, Factory Automation), spoke about how the internet is revolutionizing the business world and creates major challenges for manufacturing companies as they have to constantly remain agile and alert. In the age of the internet, Industrie 4.0 defines the way forward in industry. Tracing the journey of industrial revolution, Ms. Paralikar said that the 4th Industrial Revolution is the age of digitalization; and this is characterized by:

• Humans, devices and systems, which are connected along the entire value chain

• All relevant information is available in real time – across suppliers, manufacturers, and customers

• Parts of the value chain can constantly be optimized with respect to different criteria, e.g., cost, resource utilization, or customer needs

Customers are looking for open and flexible systems, simulation, and cloud solutions, she said. Open and flexible systems facilitate open communication; model based design; and flexible machines/architecture. Simulation connects the real and virtual worlds. Cloud applications that connect various automation vendors via different communication protocols are on the rise everywhere – healthcare/hospitals, towns and infrastructure, factories, traffic systems, and home automation.

Conclusion
Siemens’ presentations at the recent ARC India Forum made the journey toward a Digital Enterprise seem both exciting and achievable. The message was that the transition to a Digital Enterprise can be made with the right strategies and carefully chalked out plans. Siemens showcased its technologies via case studies, exhibiting the company’s expertise in multiple domains. Summing up, digitalization helps companies respond quicker to changing technology; The Smart Innovation Platform is key to realizing innovation; and Siemens is focused on transforming innovation for customers in their respective journeys to the Digital Enterprise.

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Keywords: Siemens, India Forum, Digitalization, Digital Enterprise, Smart Innovations, Advance Controller, ARC Advisory Group.