Smart Factory Strategy

To become a Smart Factory requires a strategic approach. Did you know that very few businesses actually devise strategies and of those that do, the successful completion rate is under 50%?

There are several reasons for this:

• Failure to create a realistic plan in the first place
• Not having the requisite vision or skills to create it
• Lack of clear definition of ‘completion’ – how will you know you succeeded?
• Underestimating the resources to implement it
• Underestimating the time it will take
• Failing to have appropriate governance, discipline and rigour
• Cultural inability to adapt to ensuing change
• Being too risk-averse and seeing ‘failure’ as a bad thing, rather than a learning opportunity
• Forgetting to celebrate small wins along the way.

A recent Cisco research report stated that 75% of all IoT projects failed to deliver the expected outcome, so it’s imperative that any approach to becoming a smarter manufacturer is approached in a way that guarantees success.

When it comes to smart factories and Industry 4.0 itself, there are mandatory pre-cursor steps, as well as defined and empirical stages of evolution, therefore, these must underpin the overall strategy, otherwise you won’t succeed.

Having helped both local and international brands develop, plan and implement smart factory strategies with a 100% success rate, we know how important it is to create a business-specific approach, which accommodates all the elements that make up a business – people, systems and processes – to ensure they are in alignment.

If you want to become a smarter manufacturer, let us share our learnings and successes with you, and ensure you do it right the first time!

If you’re unsure about whether you’re ‘ready’ to take the journey, we also offer smart factory readiness assessments.