Manufacturers have invested massively in technology and automation since the start of the pandemic in order to confront the challenges that accompanied this global phenomenon. Now, at the beginning of 2023, high inflation and market volatility have hit businesses hard, and companies are prioritizing digital tech and process automation investments, with some companies cutting their initial investments.
While doing so, they use their experience and judgement to ensure results are compliant with intended specifications and work instructions. Manufacturing operations evolve to incorporate more digital tech equipment like IIoT sensors, automation, and robotics. As it becomes more normalized to use advanced IT tools to extract manufacturing data, the frontline and the decisions they make on a day-to-day and minute-to-minute basis will play a key role in ensuring that optimal results are obtained from digital transformation and automation efforts.
Agile methodologies originate from the software development sector, where development teams work in a more collaborative and cross-functional manner to deliver a product that is developed with an iterative approach and is continually improved to meet the requirements set out.
This is a methodology that is the exact opposite of the waterfall method of development, where an elaborate plan is established at the beginning based on user requirements and the project is executed by subject matter experts, the aim is to deliver a solution in one go with minimum possible change requests and by following the specs to the exact detail.
Digitizing tasks and activities for frontline workers, while providing real-time operational visibility and driving process optimization and improvement, across all areas of business operations.
