Industry 4.0 refers to a new phase in the Industrial Revolution that focuses heavily on interconnectivity, automation, machine learning, and real-time data in order to create a more holistic and better connected ecosystem. With the on-set of Industry 4.0, industries are seeing extensive changes in the way of doing their businesses. There has been an evident change in core functions and processes, incumbent skill-set, and business priorities. These changes are helping them in faster go-to market, enhancing their process efficiency through automation, optimizing resources, and faster throughput.
One such industry that has seen a substantial change in their business and operations’ landscape is manufacturing. Digital transformation has changed the way the industry operates. Back in the day, manufacturing industry relied heavily on tons of skilled resources, manually-operated machinery, and linear set of processes. With Industry 4.0, manufacturing has become one of the most process-efficient, cost-efficient, and dynamic process-oriented industries in the world.
The Benefits of going Digital
- Processes Redefined
Manufacturing Industry relies heavily on its processes and hence it is its top most priority to keep enhancing the efficiency of their processes to be able to go-to-market faster and stay ahead of their competitors. Automation has been a boon to the manufacturing industry and has pivoted them from being resource-driven to being bot-driven. Process Automation tools such as RPA (robotic process automation) helps by automating redundant tasks, thereby, reducing manual errors and achieving higher efficiency in processes. The automation also allows labourers to optimize their time and become more productive.
Machines are now made with Machine Learning capabilities which allows them to identify faults and errors in production and reduce them gradually. This built-in intelligence will help manufacturing industry to achieve near-to-perfect accuracy in the future.
Process Automation tools such as UiPath has helped many manufacturing units to automate repetitive processes which enabled them to make their workforce more productive, and enhance process efficiency and accuracy.
- Customer Engagement
The most important factor in building customer loyalty towards an organization is convenience. A recent study shows that 70% of millennial would rather visit their dentist than listen to their banks, which only means that they need comfort and convenience along with quality and value. This is where digital has transformed the way customers engage with an organization. With the use of innovative technologies such as Machine Learning and Automation, manufacturing industry is able to produce goods specifically tailor-made for their customer demographic. They are able to talk to gather feedback and produce products faster.
Oracle Content and Experience (OCE) is one such tool that can enable manufacturers to build a customized and omni-channel customer experience. From a website to a unified digital experience, OCE has helped manufacturers to create tailor-made experiences and go-to market faster.
- Cost Reduction
The creation of new digitized products with analytical capabilities and integrating new methods of data collection and analysis helps manufacturers to understand and cater to the needs of customers more effectively. This, in-turn, gives a broader view to the management to facilitate business-critical decisions faster. The Automation in machines as well as processes helps in reducing resource cost as well as enhances workforce efficiency. Digital book-keeping and inventory management will help in save manpower as well as space required. Digitally gathered data helps you in analysing past data quickly to build, improve and scale your business faster. Disruptive digital business models allow for a more agile approach throughout the organization and thus optimizes performance and cost. All this and more contribute to significant cost reductions and an increase in revenue.
Automation in processes and machinery has helped manufacturers reduce errors, create near-to-perfect products and increase efficiency, quality and revenue. Machine Learning combined with artificial intelligence has helped them in gathering various data points of their customers, and analyse them to make product improvements that provided more value to the end-customer.
Start your Digital Transformation Journey Today!
Digital transformation is the way to go if manufacturers want to leapfrog their competitors and stay relevant. At Clover Infotech, we help manufacturers by identifying their current technology landscape and create a tailor-made digital transformation strategy with optimum utilization of the budget in order to enhance their customer experience, digitize processes, and scale their business to achieve better ROI.
