How can manufacturers get more value from the product digital thread data that lies across their systems and data ecosystem? How can they pull together disparate industrial information and put it into action to allow better data-driven insights and collaboration? It’s time to explore digital transformation with an Industrial System of Engagement (SOE).
Please enjoy the summary* below. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Hexagon (registration required).
Table of Contents
- The Industrial System of Engagement
- The Industrial System of Engagement for Manufacturing
- Adopt Data Centricity
- Integrate Information
- Embrace Collaboration
- Create a System for Action
- Digitally Transform with an Industrial System of Engagement
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
The Industrial System of Engagement
The Systems, Data, Information, and Collaboration Disconnect
Today’s manufacturers have more systems and data than ever but suffer from lower ability to connect and collaborate around the information they need – the product digital thread. For example, our research finds that 43% of larger companies report poor collaboration as one of the issues that slows their engineers down the most, and a full 96% of surveyed companies say that this type of lost engineering productivity comes at a significant business cost due to missed deadlines, higher costs, less innovation, and poor quality.
Introducing the System of Engagement
What can be done to get more business value from industrial data? How can manufacturers leverage their existing investments and systems infrastructure to connect disparate data and allow the right people to collaborate in a timely way? How can they leverage a more complete, real-time digital thread to drive innovation, agility, and faster product development? It’s time to explore the industrial system of engagement.
The Industrial System of Engagement for Manufacturing
The Digital Transformation Imperative
To compete, manufacturers and other industrial companies must digitally transform to become more agile and innovative. As Forrester Research shares, “Data becomes more pivotal as the manufacturing mindset shifts from repetition and volume to innovation and agility.”2 Project Engineer Tyler Lucas of Style Crest, a producer of manufactured housing products, offers real-world experience. “We needed to get away from ‘death by paper’ and create efficiency by putting real-time, digital data at peoples’ fingertips,” he explained. Further, our annual executive strategies survey finds that three-quarters of companies believe digital transformation is important or critical to their company’s long-term business success.3 To succeed in the long term, industrial companies must adopt a more connected, data-driven business approach that allows them to collaborate around a cohesive digital thread of product design, manufacturing, and quality information.
Digitally Transform with an Industrial System of Engagement
Digital Transformation is Urgent
Manufacturers need to digitally transform and become more agile so they can sustain profitability into the future despite increasingly complex products and business environments. “Life in the supply chain is tough,” says Jeff Livingston of Paragon Medical Devices. “We have to be leaner and meaner as a tier 1 supplier.”
Digital transformation in the manufacturing industry demands data-centric collaboration with the simplicity of general collaboration tools, but with the ability to manage the complexity and context of the industrial environment. This is the way to become agile and responsive to improve speed, quality, time to market, sustainability, and more.
Enable the Transition
It’s time for the industrial system of engagement to enable digital transformation in the manufacturing industries. Manufacturers have the opportunity to adopt a data-centric platform that contextually connects digital thread information from across the systems and equipment ecosystem.
To do this, they should adopt a system of engagement that complements and connects their digital data from across the existing infrastructure to allow secure collaboration without ripping and replacing valuable solutions.
An effective industrial system of engagement should support:
- Data-centricity
- Digital thread modeling and relationship management
- Integration with underlying systems
- Bidirectional communication
- Purpose-built apps
- Modern, flexible user experiences
- Collaboration in an industrial context
It’s time to maximize the potential of existing systems by overlaying an industrial system of engagement on top of current data and applications. We recommend that manufacturers should start small, gain value, and grow value incrementally to get started building their industrial metaverse with the industrial system of engagement.
*This summary is an abbreviated version of the ebook and does not contain the full content. For the full report, please visit our sponsor Hexagon.
If you have difficulty obtaining a copy of the research, please contact us.