Digital Transformation in Modern Manufacturing

Summary

At the recent ARC India Forum in Bangalore, gold sponsor Infor, provided an insightful presentation on digital transformation and how Industrie 4.0 is changing the manufacturing landscape and helping companies adapt to the “new normal.” Infor focuses on complete industry suites delivered in the Cloud. According to the company, it designs its software to focus on the user experience, leverage data science, and integrate with existing systems. In addition to end-to-end industry suites, Infor also has individual apps designed to power specific business areas.

Today, the internet has become a vital, powerful tool that can be used to communicate across companies. Ashish Kawale, Principal Consultant Infor India, mentioned in his presentation that the world is witnessing the arrival of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This is driven by the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) – the proliferation of sensors deployed in everything from cars and coffee machines to very small equipment. IIoT enables machines, computers, and even data itself to have an active role in the processes of design, manufacturing, supply chain, and customer value creation. According to Mr. Kawale, today’s key factors driving competitiveness are time-to-market and customer responsiveness. In addition, companies are investing in automation and robotics technologies that have the potential to meet low-cost countries’ labor cost levels at any location.

Some key takeaways from the Infor presentation include:

• The digital economy is real and transforming all industries

• Digital technologies will transform every link in the manufacturing value chain

• Smart or digital technology is key to successful research and development, supply chain, and all factory operations

Digital Transformation Initiatives

In his presentation, Mr. Kawale provided examples of five digital transformation initiatives that a business could consider to start its digital journey: business network, customer experience, smart equipment, process innovation, and digital workforce.

He spoke about Infor’s network-enabled supply chains, stressing that to gain visibility and remain competitive, companies have to merge the physical and financial processes across their total supply chain. However, connecting hundreds of businesses - outlets, logistics providers, distribution centers, manufacturing locations, suppliers, and financial institutions - brings both opportunities for faster responses and massive complexity risks.

Supply Chain in the Cloud

Mr. Kawale mentioned that most organizations have visibility in their supply chain that’s only “one level deep.” For the success of high performance business networks, continuous visibility is essential, so putting supply chain in the Cloud becomes mandatory.

GT Nexus is the cloud-based backbone of Infor’s supply chain capability. As of now, about 25,000 businesses already rely on GT Nexus, which gives brand owners global order visibility, so they can manage and optimize shipments to customers, distribution centers, and retail outlets. GT Nexus combines three critical and interlocking solution components into a single unified Cloud platform to give companies supply chain collaboration on a global scale.

Infor Case Studies

Infor showcased the increasing viability of digital transformation/IIoT-enabled solutions for today’s industrial organizations via case studies. Here are some highlights:

Simplified Procure-to-Pay Solution at a Premium Sportswear Brand

Infor’s procure-to-pay solutions platform provides deep ERP integration to support purchase-to-pay and pack and ship (scanning, labeling) functionality; plus supply chain visibility, transportation spend management, and invoice discounting.

According to Infor, the premium sportswear brand now delivers touchless, straight-through payment process, standardized process across brands, lower cost of goods, and reduced air transportation spend by $25 million.

Customer Engagement Solution for a Luxury Car Manufacturer

To help deliver a high end customer experience, a global luxury car manufacturer has adopted Infor digital applications to ensure the driver gets the best experience.

With Infor LN, Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), and Talent Science Integration, the company’s assembly line gets the needed relevant and actionable information. While the automobiles are in transit, an Infor solution tracks the location of each in real time.

Finally, the Infor solution enhances the quality of the driving experience with statistics and recommendations based on customer’s specifications.

Focus on User Experience

Mr. Kawale explained that Infor considers satisfying user experiences a fundamental part of what it does. To help accomplish this, he mentioned how Hook & Loop – an internal design agency – delivers a beautiful experience that users greatly appreciate.

Infor EAM has extended capability for analytics. With rich, built-in functionality and industry-specific editions, Infor EAM uses predictive and preventive analytics to extend asset life and increase efficiency. Built on modern architecture, it can be accessed on any mobile device, deployed in the Cloud, on premise, or as a hybrid.

Mr. Kawale discussed remote equipment monitoring - a predictive (rather than preventive) maintenance tool. According to the company, this helps optimize maintenance schedules and asset fleet utilization, makes proactive repairs and replacement, and reduces energy or fuel use. All Infor EAM analytics are available in user friendly dashboards.

Finally, for electric vehicle asset management, Infor has developed an algorithm to predict when battery failure will occur through correlation of dependent data, such as cranking voltage pattern, outside environment temperature, driving duration, and frequency of stop-start activity.

Conclusion

Infor’s presentation at ARC’s India Forum highlights its digital transformation initiatives in the manufacturing space. These include business network, customer experience, smart equipment, “servitization,” and digital workforce. Infor’s network-enabled supply chains help customers manage end-to-end solutions - from procurement to payment. With its extended capability for predictive and preventive analytics, it appears that Infor EAM is well positioned to help customers extend asset life and increase maintenance and operations efficiency.

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Keywords: Big Data & Analytics, Cloud, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), ERP, SCM, Industrie 4.0, IIoT, Infor, ARC Advisory Group.