What exactly, we asked, does the need to look like? The answer we came to was that customers need to build resilient and sustainable supply chains. To do so, they need to:

• Become more agile to sense, predict, and respond to disruptions
• Increase productivity through the digitalization of industrial companies (Industry 4.0)
• Improve connectivity with business partners to enable next-level collaboration
• Run sustainable business practices

Before the word COVID was on everyone鈥檚 lips, 麻豆原创 had made a commitment to be an industry leader in Industry 4.0, or the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). 麻豆原创 has long been a recognized leader in digital supply chain, For better visibility in the market around our capabilities with Industry, we created a strategy, called . As 2020 unfolded, we recognized the timeliness of it.

Customers that had already begun the journey of digitalizing business processes started accelerating their planning and projects as the global economy was brought to a virtual standstill within weeks. Manufacturing companies began aggressively looking at , which typically starts with smart manufacturing and can go as far as creating new business models. For example, , an international provider of intralogistics solutions, established real-time condition monitoring for its customers when launching its Galileo IoT platform. It was in this way that the company moved away from being a simple supplier of conveyor technology toward becoming a comprehensive service provider. Industry 4.0 has the potential to move from a factory-focused initiative to a company-wide business strategy to drive productivity across all supply chain processes.

Industry 4.Now helps move digitalization to a company-wide, competitive business strategy combining with enterprise business execution. This includes intelligent product engineering, managing intelligent factories, and assets leveraging advanced logistics coupled with people empowerment. We combine 麻豆原创 solutions for design, manufacture, delivery, and operation in one holistic offering, bringing enterprise business data together with data derived from machines, sensors, and devices facilitating the ability to automate processes with embedded artificial intelligence (AI) and increase visibility and efficiency. Sounds powerful, doesn鈥檛 it?

, a leading company in the distribution and compounding of technical thermoplastics and thermoplastic elastomers, has connected production lines with predictive quality management. ALBIS PLASTICS GmbH can now identify quality risks before they arise and understand complex interdependencies in production by intelligently connecting and visualizing IoT data. These intelligent insights are also used for future product development.

We鈥檙e only in the beginning of the adoption of Industry 4.0 and IIoT, and many companies are running pilots and proof of concepts. It starts with planning, and the ability to sense demand changes and trigger fast, flexible execution on shop floor, logistics, and asset management. Building an agile environment means being able to adapt processes for agility. Companies need to consider their engineering, manufacturing, and planning systems and integrating them; this is horizontal integration. For vertical integration, it is tying together the other components 鈥� hardware, automation equipment, and data lakes 鈥� which requires standards and a common reference architecture to make it easier and faster to connect the various components.

To give another real-world example, German automotive company has been working with 麻豆原创 to . Its project started around 2017 and found manufacturing solutions from 麻豆原创 fit its needs. Connecting different production machines with IoT capabilities was one of the key elements of the project, much of which the success experienced could be attributed to sticking with standards. The company found in its project the challenge of connecting various software providers together, and to close the chain standards were absolutely necessary.

Yet another company, , is a leader in automation and connectivity creating products for manufacturers and machine builders and serve a wide swath of industries. The company wanted to gain more performance efficiencies with its , utilizing modern, digital, and integrated machinery and solutions. Its project began with the goal of an integrated shop floor and looking at how to bring in vertical integration.

The project began in 2017 with first go-live in 2019 and was based on more than 300 data points on machine health, performance, production, and down times, among other things. One of the early results was the reduction of manual effort by up to 50% after eliminating the need for employees to walk to each machine. The integration between machines driven by IoT, the company was able to create greater transparency and productivity. The vertical and horizontal integration proved a good fit, with ease to adapt best practices and business processes for their business. Weidmueller also found the easy integration with mobile devices 鈥� in its case Apple devices 鈥� with 麻豆原创 solutions worked very well.

Increasing productivity with Industrial IoT as part of our Industry 4.Now strategy is an essential step toward creating resilient and sustainable supply chains.

Franz Hero is head of 麻豆原创 Digital Supply Chain Development.
.

鈥淢any of our customers have seen their global supply chains take on a tremendous level of complexity,鈥� says Dominik Metzger, head of Product Management, Manufacturing, and Industrial IoT at 麻豆原创. Those operating in production industries typically find themselves enmeshed in an intricate web of international suppliers and sub-suppliers. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 why plenty of companies are really struggling with disruptions,鈥� Metzger explains. 鈥淪ome of them have to do with COVID-19, but others have been apparent since before the pandemic.鈥�

In terms of macroeconomic trends, the introduction of significant trade tariffs between China and the U.S. as well as the post-Brexit EU/UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement have rattled the established structures of many organizations.

鈥淔or that reason, if anything is a top priority for our customers 鈥� right now and after the pandemic 鈥� it is measures that lower costs and boost productivity in efficient ways,鈥� Metzger says. 鈥淔or those of us at 麻豆原创, the core question is: How can we leverage our innovative technologies to help our customers automate their processes?鈥�

At the virtual Hannover Messe 2021 exhibition, 麻豆原创 plans to unveil an array of new functions and applications that are set to make industrial process data usable all along the value chain starting in the second quarter.

鈥淭hat includes data generated during manufacturing, maintenance, logistics, and so on, which needs to be integrated deep within 麻豆原创 applications,鈥� Metzger shares. Value cannot be created for companies with data alone; it also has to be analyzed in a business context. 鈥淭hat context lies in 麻豆原创 systems 鈥� in our intelligent suite, our industry cloud, and our manufacturing and logistics solutions.鈥�

Supplying Materials Automatically with IoT, Robotics, and Edge Computing

Metzger鈥檚 product management team has put together an IIoT portfolio that enables customers to fully automate their resupply and stock removal processes in 麻豆原创 S/4HANA, to name just two examples. This is made possible by robotics, the digitalization of intralogistics processes, and an intelligent framework of rules that derives potential actions from real-time data.

In assembly line manufacturing, things like forklifts and manual transport systems are needed to retrieve materials for subsequent installation. Areas like these are where companies often implement the 鈥榢anban鈥� process, which involves supplying materials exactly where production and assembly employees need them on the line.

鈥淪ensors are now being built into these kanban bins in order to 鈥榗onnect鈥� the materials,鈥� Metzger explains. 鈥淎 sensor can tell when the weight of its bin has fallen below a certain threshold, which is when more materials are automatically procured to resupply the bin.鈥�

Meanwhile, an intelligent, cloud-based system of rules interprets the sensor data to determine when actions should be triggered in specific business processes and applications. Systems like 麻豆原创 S/4HANA, 麻豆原创 Digital Manufacturing Cloud, and 麻豆原创 Predictive Asset Insights are highly integrated into the rules to help ensure that the right processes are automatically activated at the right time. Procedures pertaining to kanban, the posting of goods, and quality assurance are just a few pertinent examples.

鈥淲e refer to this combination of IoT and 麻豆原创 Edge Services as 鈥業ndustrial IoT鈥� because we鈥檙e using IoT data in an industrial context,鈥� Metzger says.

In a further innovation, autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs) are responsible for retrieving materials instead of forklift drivers. Metzger describes this fully automated approach to supplying assembly lines and carrying away finished products as a 鈥渂est-in-class鈥� logistics process, but one that only works when completely integrated between 麻豆原创 systems for manufacturing execution (MES) and warehouse management.

These new functions are designed to be used in the context of 麻豆原创 Digital Manufacturing Cloud, where they can be implemented and employed seamlessly thanks to the integration of 麻豆原创 Manufacturing solution systems and others for logistics.

Lower Implementation Costs Through Standardization

According to a , customers tested these productivity-boosting innovations at specific plants and warehouses in 2020, but have not yet rolled them out more broadly in many cases.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 because until now, the integration of operational technology like AGVs or machines, sensors, and other equipment wasn鈥檛 standardized very well in business software,鈥� Metzger explains. 鈥淭his meant that such projects involved a relatively large amount of implementation effort, and thus higher costs 鈥� which led to something of a catch-22 with regard to the fundamental idea of reducing costs and increasing productivity.鈥�

In the meantime, however, 麻豆原创 has put much of its focus on integrating automation technologies into industry standards like the OPC Unified Architecture and on implementing the administration shell.

麻豆原创 Relies on Cloud-Edge Architecture to Reduce Costs

鈥淥ver the last six or seven years, we鈥檝e invested a huge amount of effort in lowering the total cost of ownership of these implementations so that customers can operate them at scale. Along with standardization, the main thing that鈥檚 helping us here is our own technological innovation in terms of cloud-edge architecture,鈥� Metzger says. In the past, the fact that 麻豆原创 hardware infrastructure had to be set up at every plant was another reason why implementing new solutions was expensive.

鈥淭hese days, however, all these processes run in the cloud,鈥� Metzger continues. This means that it takes just one data center to control processes like warehouse robotics, digital manufacturing, or IIoT at 100 plants or more.

鈥淲hen you鈥檙e dealing with automation processes in particular, you can鈥檛 afford to have an Internet connection fail for a few seconds,鈥� Metzger says. 鈥淚t was for high-availability scenarios like these that we introduced 麻豆原创 Digital Manufacturing Cloud for edge computing.鈥�

This involves an edge device 鈥� basically a small-scale server 鈥� that helps ensure that mission-critical processes always keep running at a plant. Instead of being implemented anew at each facility, these processes are configured centrally in the cloud for each specific plant and run at the edge in a container at the plant.

麻豆原创 Edge Services and other IoT offerings from the company enable customers to turn use cases like these into reality. 鈥淚t gives you the best of both worlds,鈥� Metzger says. 鈥淚t significantly improves your ability to scale up thanks to cloud computing, all while reducing your total cost of ownership. Plus, edge computing gives you the degree of robustness you need to control mission-critical processes.鈥�

In addition, auto ID technology is to be offered as a new function in 麻豆原创 Edge Services and IoT solutions from 麻豆原创. This technology makes it possible to automatically associate the movement of a physical object with a specific process step. 鈥淩eal-time status updates like these are a big step forward in terms of supply chain reliability,鈥� Metzger says. 鈥淭his way, companies can make sure they鈥檙e always available to their customers and able to adapt to bottlenecks around the world.鈥�

In fact, the pandemic has generated an enormous demand for sports equipment of all kinds, from mountain bikes to sports boats, stretching vital international supply chains to the limit in the process.

鈥淪ince the spring of 2020, we鈥檝e received an increasing number of messages from manufacturers reporting that, despite full order books, they can鈥檛 deliver their goods,鈥� reports , senior director of Solution Management Digital Manufacturing and Industry 4.0 at 麻豆原创.

COVID-19 Challenges the Supply Chain

New bicycles, for example, were in danger of becoming scarce because a saddle post and a bottom bracket used by nearly all bicycle manufacturers could not be shipped out of China. Similarly, while demand for sports boats surged last year, production lagged due to missing parts that had to be sourced externally, such as specially curved windshields.

鈥淥ne of the few manufacturers of these windshields is situated in Italy,鈥� explains Lehmann. 鈥淲hen the entire country was forced to shut down due to the pandemic, that put an end to windshield supply for a while.鈥� Brexit resulted in similar issues where product availability changed practically overnight.

According to Lehmann, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the lack-of-agility dilemma: You are dependent on the manufacturer of a certain part and cannot sell your product even though it鈥檚 98% finished and could be shipped out to the customer.鈥�

In a global economy, companies have to be able to rely on certain production steps being carried out in other countries. But the pandemic has completely changed the rules of the game here, 鈥渨hich, in the worst case, can result in a shortage of certain goods on the market,鈥� notes Lehmann.

From Industry 4.0 to Industry 4.Now

鈥淪o the question a lot of 麻豆原创 customers in the process industry are asking right now is, how can I adapt my manufacturing processes today to be able to produce small lots of different types of products and navigate the company through this crisis?鈥� Lehmann and his team want to help 麻豆原创 customers with answers tailored to their specific situation.

In the summer of 2020, 麻豆原创 launched the program. Lehmann explains: 鈥淭he problem many customers currently have is adapting their manufacturing processes to the market and reacting dynamically to situations that change at short notice. That鈥檚 a typical Industry 4.0 use case that we run through with the customer in our Industry 4.Now showcase in Walldorf and then explore possible solutions for together.

Design-to-Operate Process as Digital Twin

Originally built for the Hannover Messe for discrete industries, this showcase can be configured for individual customers and their specific problem. Since the fair could not take place in 2020, the showcase was set up in Walldorf instead and made available to 麻豆原创 customers to visit in-person.

鈥淭he showcase contains numerous industry components 鈥� 鈥� and thus required technical expertise and service for its correct installation onsite. 麻豆原创 quickly came to realize just how challenging a physical installation can be in times of a pandemic,鈥� recalls , 麻豆原创鈥檚 project lead for the showcase. 鈥淪ome of the key experts we needed were not able to travel, and we also had to substitute construction components with viable alternatives. Thanks to 麻豆原创鈥檚 long-standing and trusted collaboration with the partners, however, 麻豆原创 was able to get the job done on time.鈥�

Following the successful installation of the physical equipment, 麻豆原创 turned its attention to creating the showcase鈥檚 digital twin. In response to the pandemic safety measures, customers can now sign up for a virtual tour of the physical showcase 鈥� from the comfort of their own home. In addition, 麻豆原创 offers an that explores Industry 4.0 themes, as well as integrated value streams for discrete and process industries in digital form.

鈥淚t is a complete, virtual reproduction of the physical showcase,鈥� explains Lehmann. 鈥淭hat is why we call it a digital twin, which maps the entire design-to-operate process, or, in other words, design, planning, production, implementation, operations, and maintenance.鈥�

Imagine, for example, a company produces valves but the caps for them cannot be delivered from its supplier in Asia. What options does this company have when its supply chain breaks down? Using the showcase, the company can test different strategic approaches to mitigate the impact of this disruption 鈥� a missing part 鈥� at different points along the manufacturing chain.

Should the company change the design of the final product? Should it change its planning process? Should it change its manufacturing workflows? 鈥淭he showcase uses examples to illustrate and answer all kinds of questions like these,鈥� notes Kalisz. 鈥淎s such, you can evaluate different approaches based on your situation to make the best decision for your company.鈥�

For example, if a part is missing, the company has the option of modifying its existing machines to allow it to diversify and manufacture other related products. 鈥淥bviously, switching from machine construction to, say, glass casting isn鈥檛 possible,鈥� notes Lehmann. 鈥淏ut a production line in the machinery industry is capable of producing more than just engine blocks, for example. It can also build similar parts.鈥� By changing the parameters of a component coming off the production line 鈥� such as a milling cutter 鈥� it can build a different part.

鈥淚ndustry 4.0 makes this possible,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t was possible to do this before the pandemic, too, but the topic has become increasingly relevant lately.鈥� It increases a company鈥檚 core competencies and allows it to adapt their industry components dynamically to the current market situation.

Lehmann is convinced that, 鈥淐ompanies that succeed in this will come out as winners in these challenging times. And that is exactly what we at 麻豆原创 want for our customers, so we鈥檒l support them as best we can in this endeavor.鈥�

The partnership, which includes a collaborative approach to standards, consortia, and open source, will shape the future of supply chain and manufacturing.

麻豆原创 Digital Supply Chain and Industry 4.0 Solutions Run on Microsoft Azure

As a result of this partnership, organizations will be able to use a comprehensive set of 麻豆原创 Digital Supply Chain solutions on Microsoft Azure, including , solutions, , and 麻豆原创 Logistics Business Network.

麻豆原创 will use Microsoft Azure to run these solutions in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model that can help reduce the customer鈥檚 need to manage the software and underlying infrastructure while accelerating time to value of supply chain applications. Customers will be able to scale globally by leveraging Azure which offers enterprise-grade compute, storage, and network services to support mission-critical performance and business continuity to run 麻豆原创 Digital Supply Chain solutions.

麻豆原创 Manufacturing Suite, 麻豆原创 Intelligent Asset Management, supply chain networks solutions from 麻豆原创, and the 麻豆原创 Internet of Things (麻豆原创 IoT) solution are already available on Microsoft Azure in Europe and the United States today.

麻豆原创 and Microsoft Collaborating to Bring Business Processes to the Edge

When managing a global, distributed supply chain and manufacturing environment, companies face challenges with constrained bandwidth, latency, and massive volumes of data that can adversely affect execution and quality scenarios. Here, the solution lies in edge computing.

Think of edge computing as a form of distributed computing where data, applications, and business processes are run near the source of generated data. The ability to extend and run business processes at the edge enables organizations with factories, plants, warehouses or remote operations, to fully automate and run their operations independently 鈥� enabling faster processing and support for data residency requirements. Customers have the choice to only send data to the cloud that is relevant for additional analysis or an aggregated view across many edges to save costs.

麻豆原创 and Microsoft are also collaborating to make 麻豆原创 solutions available on Microsoft Azure Stack Edge, starting with 麻豆原创 Digital Manufacturing Cloud. This helps manufacturers process data locally across machines and control systems to address latency or connectivity restraints.

Customers are empowered to choose what business process to run in the cloud or at the edge based on business need; they can deploy specific business processes and relevant business data to specific edge nodes using 麻豆原创 Edge Services. According to , 鈥�70% of IoT deployments by 2023 will include edge-based decision-making to support organizations’ operational and strategic agendas.鈥� The report also states that by 鈥�2023, 70% of enterprises will run varying levels of data processing at the IoT edge. In tandem, organizations will spend over $16 billion on IoT edge infrastructure in that time.鈥�

Customers have a choice to use either Microsoft Azure IoT or 麻豆原创 IoT to bring their time series data to the cloud. Time series data collected from machines or devices at the edge and sent to the cloud is of little value on its own. Companies need to put time series data into business context by augmenting it with information stored in business applications for materials, products, customers, inventory, assets, and more. Combining business semantics and time series data using the 麻豆原创 IoT solution creates business relevance, leading organizations to improved business outcomes and better decision-making.

鈥淭he expansion of the partnership between 麻豆原创 and Microsoft provides our mutual customers with the ability to leverage 麻豆原创 Digital Supply Chain and manufacturing solutions in the cloud to gain better business insights and accelerate the time-to-value as they roll out their applications on a global scale. By extending 麻豆原创 Digital Supply Chain solutions and the Azure cloud capabilities to the edge with Azure Stack Edge, businesses will also be able to manage 麻豆原创 solutions locally across their factories and warehouses to drive immediate decision-making and actions where they are needed,鈥� said Ulrich Homann, corporate vice president of Cloud + AI at Microsoft.

Companies Will Provide Reference Architecture as Guidance to Their Customers

The partnership in supply chain and manufacturing will be further enhanced with reference architectures to provide customers guidance on deploying 麻豆原创 Digital Supply Chain on Azure and the integration of 麻豆原创 and Microsoft products and services, building on previously developed .

For example, customers have a choice to use either Microsoft Azure IoT or 麻豆原创 IoT to bring their time series data to the cloud. Time series data collected from machines or devices at the edge, and sent to the cloud, may be of little value on its own. Companies need to put time series data into business context by augmenting it with information stored in business applications for materials, products, customers, inventory, assets, and more. Combining business semantics and time series data using the 麻豆原创 IoT solution creates business relevance, leading organizations to improved business outcomes and better decision-making.

麻豆原创 and Microsoft Shape the Future of Industry 4.0 with Open Standards

With software development and standards, the benefits of aligned reference architectures and common semantics are obvious. Adopting industrial standards and creating shared asset models in industrial IT are as significant to digital supply chain as a dictionary is to literacy. Business partners who wish to succeed in this space need to endorse open standards, open consortia, and open source.

As part of this partnership, 麻豆原创 and Microsoft will work together to drive compatibility and interoperability across industrial machines, software, and services as members of consortia like the Open Manufacturing Platform and the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance 鈥� to aid in the accelerated path to value of supply chain and Industry 4.0-related solutions based on open standards.

Companies that want to learn more about this exciting partnership and the benefits it brings should contact their 麻豆原创 account team for further details.

Franz Hero is senior vice president for Digital Supply Chain Solutions at 麻豆原创.

In an interview, Peter Flohrer, global vice president of 麻豆原创 Services Manufacturing discusses Industry 4.Now, 麻豆原创鈥檚 Industry 4.0 strategy, and how its accompanying service package is designed to support the entire Industry 4.0 transformation journey.

Q: Why is it so important for customers to take on Industry 4.0?

A: All industries are facing increased volatility resulting from the lasting impacts of COVID-19, such as the reordering of trade relationships, climate variability, technology advancements, and other forms of economic, environmental, and social disruptions. By prioritizing end-to-end processes rather than siloed thinking, companies are better positioned to achieve objectives specific to their business needs and footprints.

When companies are connected from end to end and shop floor to top floor, they can capture, process, and analyze more critical data to stay ahead of the pack. A highlights how the current global pandemic has also underscored this need to coordinate and optimize production beyond the shop floors and plants, ultimately helping ensure more resilient manufacturing and supply chain operations.

It鈥檚 clear that now is the time for Industry 4.0.

Can you tell us about the 麻豆原创 Industry 4.Now initiative?

Industry 4.Now is 麻豆原创鈥檚 strategic initiative for helping companies thrive in volatile times through Industry 4.0 intelligent processes. This means helping them bring their manufacturing and full product experience process to a new level by combining manufacturing automation with enterprise business execution.

While Industry 4.0 is a broad topic that has been around for some time 鈥� and we often consider the concept more of a philosophy than a concrete solution 鈥搘e created this enhanced Industry 4.Now strategy to guide customers in achieving their specific Industry 4.0 transformation goals.

With every customer鈥檚 situation looking entirely different, there is no cookie-cutter solution, which is why the consultative approach is so key and why we draw on our cross-industry expertise to counsel customers in how to integrate all these processes.

How is the new Industry 4.Now service package positioned to meet the needs of today鈥檚 users?

To support the customer鈥檚 overall journey to Industry 4.0 processes, 麻豆原创 created an accompanying innovation service package for Industry 4.Now 鈥� and the included advisory and implementation services. The four key pillars of Industry 4.Now 鈥� intelligent factory, intelligent asset, intelligent product, and empowered people 鈥� are the foundation of these services. As I mentioned, Industry 4.0 is an expansive concept, so this service package helps users to home in on specific opportunities where they can improve and excel. They provide actionable road maps for customers to reinvent production and connect their entire company across multiple business areas and shop floors.

For example, the intelligent factory service uncovers intelligent automation opportunities; the intelligent asset service identifies ways to extend the useful life and safety of assets through connected devices; the intelligent product service links to the circular economy; and the empowered people service advances a motivated and engaged workforce that, in turn, drives innovation, growth, and resilience.

In addition, these services help leaders quantify the improvement and benefits resulting from their Industry 4.0 initiatives to show how they contribute to overall customer success.

When leveraged together, this service package allows customers to effectively explore their business vision and personalize a road map to success. We start with a free maturity assessment to evaluate where a customer is in their Industry 4.0 transformation. Once an entry point is identified, the advisory services package offers a big-picture view of opportunities and agile approaches for reimagining processes and realizing business goals. For example, this helps customers determine which area they should prioritize, whether it be management or product design.

The implementation service package then assists with the necessary steps for each customer鈥檚 road map to success, including identifying the optimal partners and tools required. What is unique about this package is that it is tailored to specific business scenarios, providing key insights into how businesses can drive time to value as they automate processes and improve the resiliency of their operations and supply chains along their journeys to Industry 4.0.

The innovation service package for Industry 4.Now and the advisory and implementation services included are designed to help customers transform their manufacturing business and full product experience. They support customers in horizontal and vertical process integration, such as product design, customer-specific order processing and integration of shop floor monitoring as well as business networks.

Using the four core themes of intelligent factory, intelligent asset, intelligent product and empowered people, Industry 4.Now can help a company to achieve manufacturing excellence and its overarching business objectives.

The services provide customers a tailored transformation journey to help them adopt Industry 4.0 scenarios by identifying and prioritizing the right use cases as well as resources to reduce costs.

鈥淲ith Industry 4.0 being such a broad concept, the situation looks different for every customer and requires an individualized approach, which is why these added advisory and implementation services are so important,鈥� said Shane Paladin, president, Services, 麻豆原创. 鈥淲ith our innovative, outcome-based services, customers gain a clear, actionable road map to design, plan and execute their specific transformation goals.鈥�

Starting with a free Industry 4.0 maturity assessment and gap analysis to determine the opportunities for improvement, the advisory services provide personalized, comprehensive support for customers鈥� individual Industry 4.0 journeys. This enables customers to effectively:

• Explore and evaluate new business scenarios and define a strategic business vision
• Identify weaknesses and ways to improve current business scenarios
• Update current business processes and IT landscapes to develop a transformation road map
• Enable innovative business processes, accelerate implementation and acquire expert guidance to safeguard project success

Additionally, based on lessons learned from the advisory services, various implementation services for the Industry 4.Now strategy are available and tailored to each customer鈥檚 specific business needs. Within the implementation services there is an emphasis on essential processes, integration, technology adoption and scalability. This provides key business outcomes through real-time insights to drive critical decision-making, improved reliability and automated processes.

For more information on Industry 4.Now and the accompanying service package, please visit .

Visit the . Follow 麻豆原创 on Twitter at .

Media Contact:
Martin Gwisdalla, 麻豆原创, +49 (6227) 7-67275, martin.gwisdalla@sap.com, CET
麻豆原创 麻豆原创 Room; press@sap.com
Jennifer Kohanim, FleishmanHillard, +1 (617) 692-0535, jennifer.kohanim@fleishman.com, ET

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While the pandemic has forced companies to reinvent just about everything, the digital transformation including IoT has been years in the making. The difference these days is how intelligence from sensors can be added to business processes, enabling organizations to create new services and transform business models that are essential.

鈥淭he time for Industry 4.0 is now, and it goes far beyond just smart manufacturing,鈥� said Elvira Wallis, senior vice president and global head of Internet of Things at 麻豆原创. 鈥淚nstead of looking at any line of business in isolation, companies need real-time intelligence to fully synchronize sales and service with operations and production 鈥� from design and sourcing through factory floor, supply chain, and the front office 鈥� so they can adapt to change more rapidly.鈥�

Heightened Business Value from Visibility

Sensor data from machines 鈥� wherever they are located 鈥� carries heightened importance in a pandemic-driven business environment of unpredictable starts and stops. That is because it provides critical visibility into what is going on within plants and warehouses across the business. For example, Wallis reported a surge in customer inquiries about using IoT to accomplish maintenance tasks automatically, remotely, and safely.

鈥淚nterest is high in IoT-enabled automation from organizations that want to get the job done with minimal employee risk and fewer productivity losses,鈥� Wallis said. 鈥淩emote asset diagnostics and monitoring gives companies 24/7 visibility about machine performance, eliminating unnecessary physical maintenance calls. The same applies to procurement transparency, where sensors on items reduce the need for physical inspections.鈥�

IoT Builds Customer Loyalty

But the benefits of IoT do not stop there. IoT-based data from assets was game-changing for a power generation company based in Italy, turning it from essentially a commoditized business into a value-based premium maintenance service provider that increased customer loyalty. Using , , and , the company collected equipment sensor data at the edge on the performance of their assets and combined this with data from their 麻豆原创 S/4HANA business system. By contextualizing sensor data with business data in the cloud, the company could calculate a 鈥渉ealth score鈥� based on readings that flagged anomalies, such as when a machine was too hot, vibrated beyond acceptable thresholds, or otherwise needed servicing.

鈥淲ith these insights, customers could immediately see how assets connected to their organization were performing, while engineers and services employees could address potential performance issues faster,鈥� Wallis explained. 鈥淭he company improved performance, reducing manual processes concerning assets by 75 percent and experienced fewer downtimes and outages. They also reduced maintenance costs by five percent, conducting maintenance only when needed and heading off potential problems.鈥�

IoT Powers Intelligent Networks for New Opportunities

Leading companies in many industries are creating new digital services from IoT-based data, creating new revenue models and keeping customers and employees safe.

One midsize industrial machine manufacturer has built an intelligent network of services that shares sensor data from its connected machines. The platform provides more than 11,000 customers with real-time performance metrics on their machines, becoming benchmarks for productivity improvements.

In Asia, an industrial-grade air purifier manufacturer used IoT-based sensors to monitor filter status, automatically notifying customers when to reorder. Customers appreciated the safety of remote monitoring as much as the pre-emptive alerts to avoid facility shutdowns.

The 95-year-old owner of a steel company that manufactured industrial bulk containers in Germany differentiated his business by placing sensors in the container lids to capture data on the contents. He spun off a new services division that tracked containers by location and measured the fill levels, temperature, vibration, and viscosity of the contents.

Customers now have an immediate view into container capacity across all locations and reduced product damage risk. In fact, the company has decreased insurance claim costs by 10 percent because the intelligent containers track exact temperature levels, providing proof of improper storage management. The manufacturer has also increased the turnover rate of bulk materials inside the containers by 20 percent using just-in-time replenishment.

Do Not Forget to Transform Human Mindsets

There is no perfect use case for IoT. Rather, every company needs to figure out the best starting point for their business challenges and objectives. Like any innovation launch, digital transformation is not just about technology, but also transforming the way people conduct business. Besides choosing easy-to-understand use cases that are likeliest to deliver quick results, Wallis recommended gaining buy-in from teams beyond the IT department, along with clear communication.

鈥淒igital transformation cannot be an IT initiative alone,鈥� she said. 鈥淪tudies show that the most successful transformation strategies have support from all business stakeholders. People need to understand where the company is headed, what鈥檚 changing, why the change is happening now, and what鈥檚 in it for them.鈥�

Follow me: @smgaler
.

Industry 4.Now focuses on using digital technology to gather and analyze data across machines and business systems by enabling faster, more efficient processes. This brings together manufacturing, logistics, sales, and services to achieve value in a short period of time. Now is the time for chemical companies to start refining their Industry 4.0 strategies. A study by the World Economic Forum found that 87% percent of chemical executives say companies that do not embrace digital will lose their competitive edge and may face extinction.

麻豆原创 has been engaged in the Industry 4.0 discussion and its strategy since 2011, when it first became an academic discussion. During this time, 麻豆原创 was an integral part of the definition of Industry 4.0 as the future high-tech strategy for 2020.

Earlier this year, 麻豆原创 announced the company initiative Industry 4.Now to provide applications and advanced technologies that bring to life Industry 4.0 and the Intelligent Enterprise.

Two industry trends show how Industry 4.0 will play a part in the future of chemicals:

• Improving sustainability: Resource scarcity, government regulations, and changing consumer expectations call for innovative business models 鈥媋nd platforms in support of more sustainable practices. With governments and other organizations starting to enforce sustainability measures, such as bans on single-use plastics, as well as emissions regulations, chemical companies will need to adapt to these new regulations and lead the way to a sustainable future.
• Delivering new customer experiences: With ongoing commoditization and margin erosion, chemical companies are required to focus on co-innovation and the selling of business value and outcomes instead of just products. The ultimate goal is to deliver entirely new customer and consumer experiences by putting data at the core of everything companies do.

ALBIS聽Plastic GmbH, for example, is a leading聽global聽operating聽companies of聽thermoplastics. The company wanted to introduce predictive quality analytics across its compounding operations. However, silos of locally stored information meant that conducting predictive quality analysis across all manufacturing locations would be a challenge.

By using 麻豆原创 Cloud Platform and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, ALBIS now uses advanced analytics to review historical production and process data. Based on this, the solution analyzes patterns associated with previous quality issues and uses these to identify key quality risk areas within the processes. These results are then communicated to quality management teams using reports and dashboards.

Since implementing this solution, ALBIS has seen improved visibility and analysis of production line performance. The company now had an architecture blueprint that can be used for Big Data analytics use cases and has minimal system maintenance required thanks to the cloud-based software as a service.

For chemical companies, the 麻豆原创 strategy around Industry 4.Now can be broken into four different areas.

Intelligent Products

Intelligent products for the chemical industry are not necessarily focused on making the existing products more intelligent, but instead on offering new products or offering new value adding services business models. This is done by leveraging data and new intelligent technologies from across the entire product life cycle. Companies can then streamline the research and development process or rely on digital services to deliver outcome-based business models颅颅颅 to their customers. This requires an environment that welcomes collaboration and open co-innovation.

Intelligent Factories

Intelligent factories 鈥� or, from a chemical perspective, intelligent plants 鈥� focus on a company鈥檚 need to make efficient use of materials and energy while still producing at a high quality. They are also forced to react quickly to changing demands and unforeseen events. COVID-19 is an example of this; many chemical companies quickly adapted their factories to produce more products such as hand sanitizers or PPE gear.

Chemical companies are doing this by using intelligent data analytics for optimizing their production and horizontally integrating production with supply and demand chains.

Intelligent Assets

Companies are looking for ways to avoid downtime of equipment and increase their asset performance. They are doing this by shifting from a reactive asset management plan to predictive and proactive data-driven plans.

Empowered People

The Industry 4.0 strategy takes the people component a step further by not just making the people working in plants more intelligent, but offering resources and training to empower employees to do their job more efficiently and safely. Companies are always looking for ways to reduce risk of manual errors while increasing people performance. Providing real-time data-driven decision support helps to ensure safety, increase performance, and further drive innovation.

Now more than ever, chemical companies need to be able to rely on their digital strategies to help companies evolve and adapt to changing customer expectations. For more information, .

Jenna O鈥橳oole is a solution specialist at 麻豆原创.

麻豆原创 is helping companies improve supply chain and industry-specific processes, connect through the business network and embed sustainability as a critical measure of business success. The announcement was made at the conference, held online June 15鈥�19, 2020.

鈥淚n uncertain times, companies need a trusted partner to help them make confident decisions to enhance agility and resiliency during and beyond the current COVID-19 crisis,鈥� said Thomas Saueressig, member of the Executive Board of 麻豆原创 SE for 麻豆原创 Product Engineering. 鈥淚n today鈥檚 hyperconnected world, it鈥檚 even more important for businesses to quickly react to environmental and market changes. We鈥檙e helping to address these challenges with new ways for customers to address sustainability, lead in their industry and grow their business networks. 麻豆原创 has the strategy, expertise, solutions and partner ecosystem to enable customers to run their business as an intelligent enterprise.鈥�

Climate 21

麻豆原创 announced the Climate 21 program to support customers in pursuing their climate-related objectives. In a multiyear road map, 麻豆原创 will work with co-innovation partners to embed sustainability metrics across 麻豆原创鈥檚 solution portfolio. This will help customers understand, analyze and optimize the carbon footprint of their products and operations along the value chain.

The 麻豆原创 Product Carbon Footprint Analytics application is now available as the first solution in the Climate 21 program. The application uses data from 麻豆原创 S/4HANA and third-party sources and calculates this information within the 麻豆原创 Analytics Cloud solution. This helps customers understand their carbon footprint and provides a foundation for analyzing and optimizing greenhouse gas emissions.

To learn more, read 鈥�Our Decade of Delivery for Climate鈥� by Saueressig. Also read 鈥�麻豆原创 Launches Carbon Emissions Accounting System to Address Climate Change.鈥�

Industry Cloud

Intelligent enterprises strike the balance between optimizing their current business models and innovating at the vertical edge to develop new revenue streams and growth potential using digital technologies. 麻豆原创 and its partners are offering industry cloud solutions that extend the end-to-end processes of 麻豆原创鈥檚 intelligent suite to help drive customer鈥檚 core business in their industries.

麻豆原创鈥檚 industry cloud strategy will deliver innovative, vertical solutions from 麻豆原创 and its partners. These solutions will be built on technologies in the Business Technology Platform portfolio and use an open API framework, open process model, open domain model and common business services to create a better customer and user experience. The interoperability with 麻豆原创鈥檚 intelligent suite will enable rapid development, deployment and integration. Artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and other advanced technologies from 麻豆原创 will be available to help developers to accelerate development and deliver greater business value, enabling improved business practices and business innovation at the vertical edge.

To learn more, read 鈥�Innovation at the Vertical Edge: New Business Models for a Digital Economy鈥� by Peter Maier, president, Industries and Customer Advisory, 麻豆原创.

麻豆原创 Increases Investment for Industry 4.0 Across the Supply Chain

麻豆原创 brings significant innovations across the supply chain from design to operations to deliver greater insights, automation and responsiveness with the Industry 4.Now initiative. These innovations can help companies design and manufacture intelligent products and assets that can capture and analyze the increased tide of information from sensors across the supply chain. This enables customers to move Industry 4.0 from a factory-focused initiative to a company-wide business strategy.

With Industry 4.Now, 麻豆原创 will deliver innovations that companies need to create and capture a digital thread of these intelligent products and assets throughout their lifecycle to provide real-time insights back into the business processes, from design to operations. With embedded analytics and predictive capabilities, this intelligence can empower people to make better business decisions and drive new business models and revenue streams.

To learn more, read 鈥�Why the Time for Industry 4.0 Is Now鈥� by Richard Howells, vice president, Solution Management for Digital Supply Chain, 麻豆原创.

麻豆原创 Announces a Strategy for a Unified Business Network

麻豆原创 announced a strategy to bring end-to-end visibility, increased efficiency and collaboration across the entire supply chain processes, including design, planning, sourcing, procurement, manufacturing, logistics and asset operations. By creating a聽network of intelligent enterprises,聽麻豆原创 can聽help聽companies聽digitalize multienterprise聽business processes聽for better visibility聽and collaboration across聽the supply chain ecosystem.

This initiative spans across 麻豆原创, using insights from real-time ERP, advanced analytics and successful networks solutions such as Ariba Network, 麻豆原创 Asset Intelligence Network, 麻豆原创 Logistics Business Network and 麻豆原创 Fieldglass solutions to deliver the collective intelligence through an open and interoperable business network. With more than US$3.3 trillion flowing through these business-to business powerhouses, 麻豆原创 will help enable sustainable and resilient supply chains, transform business models and provide the agility to safeguard against global disruptions.

To learn more, read 鈥�Creating a Unified, Open and Intelligent Business Network鈥� by Chris Haydon, president, 麻豆原创 Procurement Solutions, and Paige Cox, senior vice president and head of Digital Supply Chain Networks, 麻豆原创.

Visit the 麻豆原创 News Center. Follow 麻豆原创 on Twitter at .

About 麻豆原创

As the Experience Company powered by the Intelligent Enterprise, 麻豆原创 is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world鈥檚 transaction revenue touches an 麻豆原创 system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers鈥� businesses into intelligent enterprises. 麻豆原创 helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want 鈥� without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables more than 440,000 business and public customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, 麻豆原创 helps the world run better and improve people鈥檚 lives. For more information, visit .

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We at 麻豆原创 know this because we have developed the best practices over decades with our customers in all industries. And we drive continuous innovation to deliver next practices that make business processes more efficient and transparent.

So far so good. Or is it?

Startup Spirit

I have observed a few trends affecting many industries that give me pause. Startups aggressively investigate how they can give incumbents a hard time by competing on different terms. They are not burdened by a customer base with expectations, there is no legacy — or treasure — of business relationships and commitments. There is nothing to break, nothing to protect.

Innovative big players are tuning into this spirit and looking along their value chains to directly engage with the customers of their customers, or to capture the revenue and margin their suppliers make today. Digital technologies and abundant 鈥� but still hardly exploited 鈥� data are the key ingredients to power the next wave of innovation and disruption for business models, business best practices, and the way businesses operate.

Crisis as a Catalyst

I have viewed the current crisis initially from the humanitarian perspective; after all, the pictures we have seen are hard to digest. But there is also the gigantic economic impact, and we expect a mix of V, L, and U shapes for the recovery and restart. But we can also observe how very large enterprise super tankers turn on a dime, innovate in days and weeks, and break established rules and habits.

New industries are shaping a public health sector that will look different as research institutes, life science companies, healthcare providers, technology companies, and the public sector work on keeping the world population safe and healthy. I have the opportunity to see this firsthand. 麻豆原创 plays an instrumental role in developing a聽COVID-19 tracking app for Germany and beyond in close collaboration with public health institutions (Robert Koch Institute), government, and tech companies, including T-Systems, Google, and Apple (for the smartphone APIs). It is quite an experience to see how tech giants and government fall into a collaborative innovation mode rather quickly.

New Business Models, New Speed of Innovation?

Many 麻豆原创 customers in their industries feel a similar sense of urgency as business practices are redefined by market pressure and by digital technologies that enable new, data-driven business models 鈥� innovative ways to generate revenue streams from knowledge, data, and customer insights.

Over decades, 麻豆原创 has earned a reputation for being possibly the most reliable partner to solve the most difficult business problems with best practice solutions that service many customers. But when fast-paced innovation is a critical success factor not all innovative solutions can be added into the large applications of our intelligent suite. The upgrade effort would be too high to allow for a rapid adoption of innovations. What鈥檚 more, the clear path to the cloud for enterprise software disrupts our partners鈥� business model of adding new capabilities to 麻豆原创 Business Suite by modifying and extending code in our joint customers鈥� systems.

The obvious consequence is that we need a new innovation model and extension model for our intelligent suite and our business network.

Industry Cloud: A New Response to a New Challenge

Our new industry cloud is an open yet integrated innovation space for 麻豆原创, partners, and customers, which provides both best-practice business processes and advanced digital technologies to create next business practices and innovate at the vertical edge.

The processes and data domains of the intelligent suite are a key asset for our customers. Many developer years and significant brainpower have gone into creating business best practices for all industries that take care of the business essentials. We make those capabilities available through open APIs and expose the business process and domain models.

This open integration layer gives us, our partners, and customers a structured access to build next practice solutions that optimize the end-to-end processes supporting our customers鈥� current business models with 鈥渘ext practices.鈥�

The industry cloud is also the innovation space for experiment and exploration. All digital technologies of the Business Technology Platform are available, including machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), analytics, and blockchain to drive innovation at the 鈥渧ertical edge鈥� — trying out ideas that may fail or enable our customers鈥� breakthrough to develop successful data-driven or ecosystem-driven business models.

The industry cloud also makes development of new solutions easy, with business services that provide common functionality like currency conversion but also subscription management, billing, and other services that create a simple and unified user and customer experience. For more information, see the .

Starting the New Ecosystem for Innovation

To jump-start the wide adoption of the industry cloud as an innovation space, we have selected an initial set of four industries that span a wide spectrum of processes and business priorities.

companies are currently balancing their classical, sophisticated business models with the disruptive forces of new mobility. are managing the transition to renewable energies and the new opportunities from a redefined relationship with their commercial and retail customers. businesses have long been at the leading edge of digital innovation, and is catching up rapidly with digital twins of buildings and capital assets for intelligent operations and new service offerings (read the partnership announcement we made with Honeywell last week).

Industry 4.Now

Many industries are looking forward to capitalizing on the promise of integration operational data from the shop floor with the data coming from business IT. This convergence benefits both the manufacturers of vehicles, industrial machinery, or buildings as well as the industries that use this equipment to make chemicals or mill products, operate buildings, drive logistics services, or run mining and oil and gas operations.

Our Industry 4.Now initiative is an integral part of the industry cloud strategy and we are already on our way.

Beginning of a Journey

We are starting a multi-year journey to write a new chapter how we drive innovation with our partners for the core business of our customers in their industries.

More industries will join this initiative every quarter and I look forward to the innovations and to the vibrant ecosystem of customers and partners that the industry cloud will foster and shape.

Peter Maier is president of Industries and Customer Advisory at 麻豆原创.

Today, companies need to be able to respond to volatile demand, uncertain supply, and constrained capacity. But as we look beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, companies must also be able to respond to demanding customers that will look for individualized and sustainable products.

If anything, this volatility has highlighted the need for digital transformation and industry 4.0.

We need agile and resilient supply chain and manufacturing processes to help manage and mitigate supply chain disruptions in the tough times and maximize business opportunities in the good times.

Industry 4.0 Is Coming to the Forefront

Industry 4.0 started with smart manufacturing, but it is much more than that.

As the cost of sensors reduce and ecosystems mature, companies are developing intelligent products and assets that can capture more information and integrate more deeply into horizontal business processes. This has given industry 4.0 the potential to move from a factory-focused initiative to a company-wide business strategy.

We can now create and capture a digital thread of these products and assets throughout their entire life cycle. Intelligent products and assets can now provide real-time insights back into the business processes, from design to operate. This intelligence can empower users through embedded analytics and prescriptive capabilities, significantly increase productivity, reduce cost, and drive entirely new business models and revenue streams.

Intelligent Products Become Personalized, Connected, Intelligent

Customers are increasingly demanding individualized and intelligent products that can capture, share, and even remotely control information with their personal devices.

This all starts in the design phase,聽where聽organizations need this level of connection to monitor market trends and innovate to deliver on customers鈥� unique desires.聽Increasingly, organizations want to design smarter, industry 4.0-enabled products and assets that have built-in sensors to capture real-time data once they are in use in a live environment.

We also need to digitize the product life cycle from design to decommission to improve and automate innovation, design, production engineering, and assembly processes. Only then can information be shared seamlessly across engineering, manufacturing, and asset operations.

Intelligent products are designed in such a flexible way that last-minute engineering changes can immediately be handed over to manufacturing operations. This allows a significantly higher agility to cater to changing customer requirements between the time of an initial order and the completion of an actual production process. Change impacts are automatically identified and managed, and open production orders or purchase orders for raw materials are automatically adjusted.

Intelligent Assets Can Improve Productivity, Drive New Business Models

By building intelligence into assets we use or manufacture, we can now capture and leverage data across the end-to-end supply chain. By creating this digital twin of a physical asset, you can monitor, analyze, optimize, and maintain it throughout its life cycle, from design to decommission. It allows for achieving the balancing act among profitability, asset health, and availability.

Intelligent assets provide useful information, such as:

• How they are performing
• How are they being used and for how long
• What maintenance strategies make the most sense
• If they are operating in a sustainable way with regards to emissions
• If they require maintenance
• If they have broken down

Highly complex machines designed with tens or even hundreds of thousands of parts in sophisticated engineering bills of materials can have life cycles of decades. Along their life cycle, these assets will be disassembled and assembled multiple times, for example, for transportation purposes and to be installed on-site. Or, parts may get regularly replaced with newer variants. Managing the entire life cycle of a machine is what we call the digital thread.

Having full visibility into this digital thread can enable operators to:

• Minimize asset on-boarding time and cost
• Reduce downtime
• Drive predictive and prescriptive maintenance processes
• Increase overall equipment efficiency (OEE)
• Extend the life of expensive equipment
• Increase customer service levels

Intelligent Factories Are More Flexible, Agile, Responsive

When it comes to manufacturing, sophisticated digital supply chain capabilities and greater connectedness can help organizations increase shop floor visibility, identify process bottlenecks, and manage operations with greater agility. This, in turn, facilitates smart factory capabilities in which rigid production lines are transformed into flexible manufacturing cells, making it possible to shift from mass production to mass customization.

Intelligence is often driven by device connectivity, the vertical integration of sensor or machine data into a horizontal business process. This IT/OT convergence allows to further automate manufacturing operations. Machine-triggered demand signals are responded to by automatic, guided vehicles to supply the right materials directly from the warehouse to each manufacturing station. In-line, visual quality inspections are automated based on artificial intelligence (AI), helping manufacturing companies identify defects early in the production process, at a lower cost, and with reduced human errors to speed up the inspection process.

An intelligent factory is agile, adaptable, and ready to support different production scenarios. It is also elastic and able to deal with varying production volumes and manufacturing technologies. This enables intelligent factories to use manufacturing operations management with both predictive and prescriptive capabilities, along with real-time data, engineering and enterprise resource planning (ERP) feedback loops, and network capabilities for design collaboration.

Empowered People Are More Productive, Make Better Decisions

No matter how far automation goes, manufacturers will always need people. Operators will fill roles that cannot be automated, completing complex tasks and making intuitive decisions. The key is to realize what can be automated and what requires human intervention. The goal is to augment humans with AI and robotics, not replace them.

AI doesn’t take the person out of the process. It takes the robot out of the person. People are and will continue to be your most important resource, and giving them the tools they need to do their jobs safely and effectively will be your most important task. The key is to give them the data to make quick, but informed decisions so they can manage unforeseen events in near-real time. Connected devices guide operators with working instructions in virtual reality or 3D overlays and warn employees when environmental conditions become unsafe to work.

And as the degree of automation increases so does the complexity of the decisions they need to make. If components are not available at the expected level of quality, for instance, the production sequence must be changed without impacting the most critical customer orders. The same is true for an unplanned machine breakdown. Your people will need the information to solve the problem.

Why 麻豆原创 and Why Now?

As companies look to adapt to changing market conditions and deliver on the increasing need for 鈥渂atch of one鈥� production, they must increase productivity and resiliency. Automation through intelligent technologies, like the Internet of Things (IoT), AI, and edge computing, can enable a digital mirror of your supply chain, helping to:

• Allow the highest levels of flexibility to cater to customer demands
• Optimize and automate production lines for increased throughput
• Significantly reduce supply chain costs while increasing customer service levels
• Gain accurate inventory levels in warehouses as well as in transit and production materials
• Track and trace goods across the entire logistics network
• Achieve the balancing act among profitability, asset health, and availability
• Increase safety and the empowerment of employees
• Provide real-time information and analytics to all users
• Change the paradigm of how operators work with machine manufacturers

麻豆原创 has announced Industry 4.Now, a strategic investment to help customers transform their manufacturing business. Recent investments include more than 100 new innovations 麻豆原创 plans to deliver in 2020:

Intelligent Products

• Manufacturing engineering to help effectively manage new product innovations and product design changes
• Partner integrations to industry leading engineering software

Intelligent Factories

• Distributed edge computing for 麻豆原创 Digital Manufacturing Cloud
• Digital supply-to-line processes for production logistics
• Intelligent factory innovations, such as factory insights
• Visual inspection and quality management based on AI

Intelligent Assets

• Flexible access to hyperscaler agnostic data lakes and data historians
• Simplified and standardized asset onboarding

Empowered People

• Data-driven shop floor operations
• Ad-hoc decision support to respond to unforeseen changes

The 麻豆原创 Digital Supply Chain portfolio supports industry 4.0, enables the digitalization of engineering, manufacturing, and asset operation processes, connects and automates machines and devices, and brings intelligence via AI and advanced analytics to an entire production process. This can help to continuously improve production performance, lower cost, and increase the agility and resiliency of your supply chain.

Richard Howells is vice president of Thought Leadership and Awareness for 麻豆原创 Digital Supply Chain.