While the principles behind Manufacturing 4.0 are promising, you might be apprehensive about how you can implement these lofty ideas in your industry. That said, by implementing just one small improvement which cascades into others , your organization could become a lean, mean Manufacturing 4.0 machine.

The Industrial Revolution conjures images of smoggy London skies and Dickensian toil.   A lot has changed since the 18^th century and the initial transition of manufacturing from hand methods to mass production.   In fact, there have been two additional industrial revolutions in the meantime.

The Second Industrial Revolution occurred around the turn of the 20^th century thanks to technological advancements such as the railroad, electrical power, and the widespread use of machinery. Then came the Third Industrial Revolution, or the Digital Revolution, which kicked off in the middle of the 20^th century.  This stage marked a shift from production via analogue machines to a digital infrastructure including computers, microprocessors, and the Internet.

But  let’s talk about today.  We stand at the very beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in which new technologies promise to bridge the physical and the digital. The world is in for rapid, disruptive change thanks to artificial intelligence, the democratization of mobile technology, quantum computing, the Internet of Things, and myriad other advances.

These fast-paced changes inspire equal parts excitement and fear. On one hand, new efficiencies in supply chain, transportation, and communications promise to improve the quality of life around the globe. Meanwhile, many people fear that their livelihoods will be replaced by automation.

This leads us to the concept of Manufacturing 4.0, a movement which zeros in on how these technologies impact the manufacturing industry.

The principles behind Manufacturing 4.0

We’re optimistic for an increase in safe and rewarding jobs spurred by concrete technological improvements in manufacturing. Done right, Manufacturing 4.0 will be realized through four central methods:

• Interconnection. People will be able to communicate with machinery and tools via the Internet of Things. Importantly, machines and devices are also able to share data with one another.
• Information transparency. Expect a huge influx of data enabled by these interconnected technologies and people. Improved information has the potential to touch every point in the manufacturing processes. Operators, managers, and workers will be able to make data-driven decisions when it comes to improving processes, training, factory layouts, and more.
• Technical assistance. Humans will not have to parse through this information alone. New systems will aid leaders and teams to make informed decisions based on the quick and systematic aggregation of the data collected with the help of information transparency. Computers can detect trends and produce visualizations so that managers and workers can make data-driven choices and plan ahead. Aside from helping people think and reason better, cyber physical systems aka smart machines, will also be there to perform or support physical tasks that are too difficult or unsafe for humans.
• Decentralized decisions. In some cases, systems will make decisions on their own. This is automation. The promise of automation relies on the imagination of people performing manufacturing processes today. These folks know their work best and can provide the best insights into how technology can amplify and standardize their hard work.

People-powered innovation

While the principles behind Manufacturing 4.0 are promising, you might be apprehensive about how you can implement these lofty ideas in your industry. After all, manufacturing touches a wide variety of industries from automobiles to clothing, specialty chemicals to aerospace equipment, and everything else produced on planet Earth. How can you make business decisions about technology that will produce specific, yet ongoing, impact?

Start small. Ask around. The people who work in your manufacturing plants and facilities are the experts at the work they do every day. Seek the input of manufacturing workers and managers on how their jobs could be made easier.

Does paperwork keep foremen working late into the night? Think about ways that smart technology could streamline this work, such as replacing pen and paper with tablets that store data in a centralized, cloud database. Explore optical character recognition (OCR) solutions that detect handwriting to convert scattered, paper-based information into digital files. Voila! The beginnings of interconnection and information transparency at your organization.

There are countless examples of how manufacturing processes can be improved today. And given the volume and complexity of work done on any manufacturing site, it’s inevitable that one small improvement will cascade into others until eventually, your organization will become a lean, mean Manufacturing 4.0 machine.

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As we face yet another period of change, as business leaders, our ability to adapt to change and preparedness to be agile in our response to opportunities or threats has never been more key to our success.

To achieve this we need to have sharpened our business processes to the optimum so we have spare capacity to adapt to new opportunities.  

In the business world in the UK we are told that our workers are not as efficient as some of our European cousins.  I find that hard to believe, but if we accept it at face value, ok there are plenty of ways we can improve our Productivity and Processes and we see good examples of companies doing that in the UK and USA, every day. However we are also aware that there remain many companies who are still using the tools prevalent 20 years ago which struggle to collaborate, never mind do it on any platform and it be intuitive and easy to work with.

There are many business leaders who are embracing change and helping their workforce to find smarter ways of working. Yet many are still using the same old tools because they are familiar and not because they are the best, which is dramatically limiting the scope of their progress

Recommended Productivity and Efficiency Tools

As a company we are focussed on helping companies to improve their processes, making sure their workers (users) of IT solutions have the best and most intuitive tools to work with. Let us share our recommendations of great software that could help your company make a step change in Business Process improvement…. They are…. Below and all offer a free trial.

The range of Cloud based solutions grows daily but we recommend Smartsheet instead of Excel and Task lists/to do lists that don’t join up and collaborate.

Appsheet which offers the ability to build cost effective Mobile Apps in a day or two, that work on any device and deliver the exact solution you seek by conditional logic. Collaboration for the masses! Costed in £100’s not 10’s of £1000’s.

Data produced by these work management Apps should be viewed in Graphical dashboards so good decisions can be made, based on Real Time Results. Microsoft  Power Bi is one of those Graphical Apps that reads data from any Spreadsheet, so your management finger is on the pulse of your business ready to act on what you see.

For many workers travelling to work or to a meeting is the tradition, rather than best practise. Since our company started working with companies around the world, we have had to embrace the video conference and screen share world.  These tools have improved dramatically, speeding up decision and delivery times, and cutting down on travel time and costs and reducing our carbon footprint.

We currently recommend Zoom.us for conferencing and screen share but equally acknowledge that Skype, Webex, GoToMeeting and Join.me among others achieve good results. Alas Face time is still one to one… at the moment.

If we manage the changes that are affecting us, then we can seize new opportunities as they are presented.  In order to achieve this our Business Processes need to be fully optimised, allowing us to create in our organisations a culture of continuous innovation, safe in the knowledge that our Key Performance Indicators are telling us what we need to know… in Real Time.

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