How To Do Digital Transformation The Right Way
Major sectors of manufacturing are embracing digital transformation for their own reasons and at different paces. But there are some common best practices for these varying industries as they sink hundreds of billions of dollars into their operations in order to optimize new technologies under what’s become known as Industry 4.0.
The best approaches across verticals include a crawl-walk-run strategy on digital simulations of supply chains and factory operations, a focus on helping scarce labor make the most of industrial automation, and the possibility of “reshoring” operations hand in hand with greater digital investments.
“There’s a shift in the way the market is thinking about [digital] solutions, and it really is a solutions-first approach,” Ryan Martin, industrial and manufacturing markets research director at ABI Research, told Chief Executive. “You figure out the problem and the solution first, and then the technology to support that.”
The global automotive sector has become the biggest spender on digital transformation, ABI’s latest study found, forecasting that the industry will invest nearly $100 billion this year and more than $238 billion annually by 2030 in its transformation to electric vehicles from internal-combustion powertrains.
Automakers need software to design new types of vehicles and work with Tier One parts suppliers to assure performance requirements and the demands of mass customization, while the OEMS will need to transition production to the new types of vehicles without harming production volumes, ABI said.
