
Ever since, the Industrial age, manufacturing has always been on a relentless evolution. Nowadays, digital technologies are coming up with newer ways for manufacturers to deliver value. Enterprises are at diverse points on the digital trajectory; a few are commencing their journey, a few are employing changes in a phased manner, while some early adopters are now noticing quantifiable benefits. Of all, one thing is for sure: digitization is radically altering the way businesses are transacted globally. Most of the competitors today are now collaborating for industrial growth.
Formerly, an individual used to hear regarding suppliers and end users collaborating to distribute information and comprehend emerging technologies. Supply chain linkages were also linear, but the same doesn’t work in today’s complex and integrated supply chains. In today’s digitized world, where there are several levels of connectivity and complexity, suppliers are establishing bonds with each other to concurrently expand their combined global footprint and help their consumers grow.
The ones that are efficiently able to make use of abundant data available in meaningful ways across various departments like product development, sales, and operations; across devices; and with consumers are continually developing new models of collaboration.
IMAGINE flawless visibility across a supply chain. Or knowing, in real-time, what your consumers categorically need.
Today, manufacturers are looking for new ways to respond better to complex markets. With IoT and other disruptive software technologies like PLM, one can analyze data from multiple companies in real-time, allowing them to share manpower, goods, and expertise beyond their own capabilities. By bringing in a variety of industries, one can lower production costs, improve efficiency and keep up with diversified consumer demands. Because working in collaboration today means bringing in new ideas for a better tomorrow.
Let us see how collaboration works…
Value-added services
Manufacturers of physical goods find new value as information publishers
You can make apt decisions about how you would want to sell and support your products when you know how your consumers use your products. And this data tends to take on new values because it contains insights that are significant to the consumers. These information services are way more than just a revenue stream. They form a way of connecting closely with your consumers that are very difficult to replicate. Clienteling
Advanced design tools are helping companies become faster on their feet and responsive to their customers.
Present day product designers look beyond features. They are more interested in knowing how consumers use various products and how possibly they can cut failures. This generation tools like rapid prototyping, virtual reality, and multivariate simulations are aiding designers design and test the options that look the most valuable. Technologies like photogrammetry assist in creating static and moving 3D models of real-world products. With complex 3D printers, designers who work closely with sales staff can now see how a concept might work in hours rather than days.Digital factories
The Internet of Things will bring smart factories, where machines cooperate with each other
From automated renewals to self-healing equipment and machines that learn smart, we are beginning to see the rise of digital factories. Machines that schedule their own tasks and route around bottlenecks will help improve throughput and cut cycle time. This will help suppliers and consumers in gaining more certainty.Next generation manufacturing
New manufacturing techniques mean companies can produce exactly what their customers want
Computer-aided manufacturing was just the beginning of the revolution. Today, methods like additive manufacturing empower enterprises to create products in virtually any 3D shapes, out of diverse materials. This enables designers to develop product ideas without any constraints imposed by how they’ll be built. This also cuts down a lot of costs as compared to traditional manufacturing.Transparent supply chains
Companies are finding new ways to collaborate across the supply chain
Customer experience takes on an entirely different facet in a B2B environment. Instead of safeguarding information, several enterprises are actively sharing it and planning jointly. They are transforming B2B into a peer-to-peer world by computerizing links to consumer’s ERP systems, thereby catering access to real-time production status, logistics updates and even enabling consumers flexibility how they schedule work. By sharing data, they let their consumers make better decisions and they thus turn buyers into partners.Data mining
Companies will use unstructured data to interpret real-time customer feedback
Consumers are forever sharing data- but then they do it in their own language, where and when it pleases them. It can take forever for their observations to reach back to the headquarters if it ever does. Collaborative tools will let manufacturers parse social media comments as they are made anywhere anytime around the globe. Manufacturers will thus get a much broader vision on what their consumers actually think by connecting the dots with ‘voice of their consumer’ survey and focusing on group responses. Applied analytics
Applied analytics will help manufacturers see what their customers want – even before the customers know
Applied analytics empowers an enterprise to find hidden correlations that show emerging trends and complementary products. It also helps to detect usage patterns that point to unmet market demands and simulate different options for meeting them. Predictive algorithms also enable enterprises to model how various product might perform in the market.Operational forecasting
Planning processes will be based on real-time information all the way across the supply chain
Manufacturers are constantly adapting to different changes like labor actions, weather, supplier delays and many more. A few changes cannot be avoided while others come down to imperfect data. As supply chains continue to grow more transparent, manufacturers will have even more control over delivery times and production costs. Better operational forecasts will transform the way businesses source and use capital. Better planning also would mean fewer unused resources and more time with consumers. So, how will PLM help manufacturers collaborate and move to Digital Enterprise?In order to move manufacturers into processes of future, PLM software caters solution and strategies into a wide range of advanced manufacturing technologies from additive manufacturing to virtual simulation for product and production to cloud-based platforms that further connects equipment and factories. PLM software offers a portfolio of solutions that digitizes entire products, processes and production lifecycle (including advanced analytics and simulation for product performance, manufacturing processes, and supply chain collaboration)
In order to create a successful digital enterprise, enterprises must consider modeling a system that further models the entire design/simulate/build/produce/maintain lifecycle upfront and design a digital twin that further merges the virtual and physical worlds across the lifecycle. It is important to note that simulation and collaboration at every stage of the lifecycle are critical to creating a digital twin.
PLM software is also coming at advanced analytics in several ways. With automated analytics, PLM software will now analyze and unify every large amount of disconnected big data. Also, cloud-based platforms will now access, collect and aggregate all manner of manufacturing data for analysis while connecting machines and equipment in factories and production systems.
Also, PLM software is coming up with new convergent modeling technologies that effectively combines facet, parametric and solid modeling that can support complex 3D printing techniques.Wrapping Up The companies that share the most – and commit to life-long learning for their employees – are likely to both drive and thrive in the digital age. From coffee to cars, user experiences influence our buying decisions. Let us help you uncover ideal customer experience by determining what success looks like, innovating your business and creating new values with PLM software. Write to us at marketing@aimdek.com
Go beyond what you already know… before someone else does.