As the world is trying to crawl out of the new normal into the good old normal, many lessons have been learnt in the past few months as organizations continued to transform digitally. One clear trend that we observe is that the tightly weaving application of Analytics is on the rise; it has become a ubiquitous phenomenon across not just Manufacturing, but across domains today. The manufacturing industry, while traditionally a laggard in modernizing and adopting analytical & digital technologies, is making nimble and steady progress in its journey today. The industry recognizes the role and value of analytics, particularly real-time analytics based on IoT (Internet of Things) as a catalyst to any digital transformation program.
Once enabled, Real-time analytics can assist to:
• Enable businesses to anticipate customer responses ahead of time
• Predict the behavior of machines for proactive maintenance and thus reduce downtime
• Systematically identify and remove defective raw materials to improve quality of production
• Adjust operating parameters to resolve errors, optimize asset performance to maximize throughput and minimize workforce burnout rate,
• Autotune and continuously adapt production in response to fluctuations in supply chains, distribution networks, and consumer demand so on.
With the right composition of analytics and IoT (aka AIoT), a few of the manufacturers in the process and discrete spectrum have made commendable progress in their digital transformation journeys. Many are already at different stages of evolution and are looking forward to executing a successful transformation in their enterprises. This is possible if an organization puts together a planning and execution practice that enables them to evolve from where they are at present, to where they can reach in the realm of adopting AIoT as part of the digital transformation program. One such practice you can follow is DECOR.
Let me break that up for you.
DECOR is a journey in the adoption of Analytics & IoT (AIoT in short) to accentuate your digital transformation in 4 easy steps.
Step-1 (Discover & Evolve): As a starting point, check the short, mid, and longterm business needs and requirements with more profoundness. Align how Analytics and Digital transformation could act as an accelerator to achieve those goals.
Step-2 (Core Analysis):
• Analyse:
• Conduct a departmental self-assessment, followed by a curated workshop to accurately assess the current level of readiness, maturity, and capability across people, process and technology dimensions of the enterprise.
• Invest sufficiently in assessing the skillset and mindset sub-areas within the People dimension.
•Establish and document the As-Is and ToBe or desired state across People, Process and Technology realms.
• Orient: This is where the old saying ” To not see the wood for the trees”, is turned on its head. In the interest of maximizing utilization of analytics in business and digital transformation; many practitioners, small and large, started overlooking data, data quality, and related areas. It is very crucial to assess the enterprise on its data readiness and have measures to circumvent any identified limitations sustainably, while fully acknowledging data improvement is an ongoing journey and not a destination.
Step-3 (Act): It’s time the rubber hits the road. The mantra during this step is to clearly define the critical path to success, involve the right resources at the right time, and execute as per plan.
Consider using proven methodologies such as SEMMA – Sampling, Exploring, Modifying, Modeling & Assessment, to unearth hidden aspects and getting the right perspectives at the right time. Last but not the least, incorporate best practices and learning from other domains such as banking and financial services, telecom, retailing, etc. that have adopted Analytics as a mainstream function. Many of these industries have adopted analytics over a decade ago and are now a rich repository of wisdom.
Step-4 (Review): This is the last step of our DECOR model, a comprehensive review of outcome across all the identified KPI’s & measures are to be agreed upon over the established baseline.
The measurement of impact must be simple, easy to track in a sustainable fashion, and most importantly, to incorporate analytical recommendations to reap the benefits from your digital transformation program.
Regardless of where you are in your transformation journey, incorporating AIoT as part of digital transformation will substantially increase your odds of success. However, it will require augmentation of existing business and technical processes and most importantly, concrete change management orchestration to elevate the mindset and skill set of the workforce to reap the true benefits.
Do remember, what is impossible today, won’t be so tomorrow! Let’s strive to accelerate this transformation together!
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