For manufacturing organizations, perhaps the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to their digital transformation journey is the digitization of the frontline workforce through a comprehensive platform.

The platform should have the ability to connect the workforce to the enterprise while enabling data collection and facilitating real-time decision-making. That said, until recently most organizations were focused on providing better digital tools to their knowledge workers and office staff, not the frontline workforce. Leaders in manufacturing through hard-learned lessons; realized during the pandemic that frontline workforce digitization brings with it a golden opportunity for improvements in overall process efficiency and operational effectiveness. Most importantly, previously untapped treasure troves of data, right from the shop floor, which has the largest impact value if collected, viewed, and acted upon with the right context and in the right timeframe.

The value of digitizing the plant by replacing paper forms as your first step in the Industry 4.0 journey

Industry 4.0 and the benefits it can potentially bring are often misconstrued to be a ‘Big-Bang' change in the way a company operates. Overnight, the automation of plant workflows and AI-driven business results are achieved to yield far-reaching and unprecedented benefits. This view of Industry 4.0 adoption has some serious flaws.

Unplanned downtime is the single biggest enemy of productivity.

Forbes estimates the cost of downtime alone is over $50 billion each year for industrial manufacturers. This is more than substantial and can often be the difference between a company making or losing money. The article points toward predictive maintenance gaining prominence to significantly reduce downtime, to learn faster and predict failures long before stoppages can ever happen.