Going Local in Manufacturing Digitalization Projects
There is a lot of goodness in undertaking Manufacturing Operations Management projects at the corporate level, and for companies who have exceptional culture and a unified strategy it works well. There is nothing like taking your best operating plant, understanding the way they operate and using that as a template for the rest of your plants. But are there advantages of doing things at the individual plant level without an enterprise in mind? Here are some considerations that show preference to taking this approach.
Small Teams Make Fast Decisions
There is a lot to be said in minimizing the dependencies on other teams to execute an automation or information management project. First of all, there is no need for a committee to spend an inordinate amount of time gaining buy-in across an organization and setting up governance processes. Budget approval can happen within a department. A design can be developed with a small set of people being involved. This allow the team to move quickly to implement, showing faster time to value for a project. This “fast work” approach can catch on quickly in an organization because it requires less organizational muscle.
Start Where the Losses are and Work Incrementally to Solve.
Don’t try to take on digitization as an all-encompassing infrastructure. This is like trying to boil the ocean from a data management point of view. Instead, look at where your problem areas are in a plant and apply a technology solution to an area that you feel, if fixed, will make a significant difference to your business. It could be in quality management, waste reduction, energy use or workforce management. When you fix it, use a software technology that can scale beyond the current problem. That way you are using the capital investment from this project to fund additional projects. The investment in software is reused and only incremental services may need to be applied in the future. Buy the capacity you need tomorrow, today, while you have the budget.
Make the Duration Short to Show Returns
Take on projects that can be executed in a quarter to a half-year to show measurable results. Operational goals are short sighted and most managers are given objectives that require short term results. Also, organizations are constantly evolving and changing. If we set our sights on smaller solutions that have a measurable return at the local plant level, this can make an immediate improvement in costs, throughput or reliability of the plant. Not only are these types of projects easier to fund, it can also be a real morale booster. Examples of these types of projects are SCADA visualization, Historian, Data Reporting, Condition Monitoring or Alerting solutions. It could also include a combination of PLC hardware and sensors to capture data that can expose a part of the plant that was hidden from view. Answering the questions like “why are we having loss, quality or performance issues?”
In summary, consider how a small and local approach to digitization can fill gaps in your ability to execute manufacturing operations projects with speed, results and time to value before the next competitive threat or market shift negates some of the work you are doing with projects that have a longer cycle time.