Solution Consulting
INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
By Phil Lewis , Senior Vice President of Solution Consulting , International , Infor .
sourcing were efficient and cost effective . Now , with shipping costs through the roof , and both containers and spots on ships hard to come by , companies are recognising the benefit of reduced transport and moving manufacturing closer to customers – but that requires a rethink of how these factories operate . Thankfully , the advancement of digitalisation and automation , robotics , machine learning and advances in manufacturing techniques have increased manufacturers ’ ability to create smaller , more automated and much smarter factories located in countries and cities closer to the customer . Reshoring and back-shoring is picking up steam as technology helps companies reduce labour costs via automation .
Essentially , automation is enabling manufacturers to build new smart factories in developed countries . Automation helps factories operate with far less unskilled ( mainly human ) resources . Less labour means less labour costs . Factories operating out of high-cost manufacturing hotspots such as Germany and Japan are largely automated for production and employ far fewer employees , relying mostly on skilled engineers to maintain the machinery and the equipment . In addition , fully standardised , digital and automated processes can be much quicker than processes that involve human interaction and manual tasks .
Increased automation makes locating
CONTRIBUTORS
facilities in high-cost but also highly educated countries a smart move . For example , a manufacturing execution system for the coordination of production machinery can automate the task of machine maintenance scheduling . But decisions still need to be made by people who are responsible for the outcome . These human decision points stand in the way of the complete ‘ lights-out ’ factory , but not in the way of progress . The more automated the factory becomes , the more flexibly it can react to market changes .
As more and more manufacturers embrace automation , sustainable practices and the nearshoring of facilities , smart factories , which utilise not only automation but other Industry 4.0 technologies and processes , are becoming increasingly common . Infor has partnered with Deloitte to open The Smart Factory @ Wichita on the Innovation Campus of Wichita State University to help manufacturers explore use cases for new technologies and , ultimately , to transform their facilities into smart factories .
Many companies have already begun to integrate Industry 4.0 technologies , including artificial intelligence , into their business processes . This helps automate the process of generating the parts lists for specific jobs , improving the efficiency and accuracy of the recommendations , scaling the service quote process , reducing stress on staff and ensuring a first-time fix for clients .
Automation is complex , and there ’ s a lot of work to do to lay the foundation at any facility . The most urgent question for most production companies is not how to implement the latest technology – most have pilot projects and implementations for data analytics , digital manufacturing technologies or artificial intelligence . The key challenges are :
• how to bring all these different technologies together , and
• how to roll them out on the entire production environment
Replacing old technologies on a global scale often means a change in workflows and measurements . This change can be challenging . Standardising operations at all production sites , being able to monitor the same key performance indicators in the same way and automating welldefined processes across all operations are the first areas to address . CLA
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