Manufacturing Convergence Practices and Trends: Perspectives from Providers and Customers

Rockwell Automation Manufacturing Convergence Practices and Trends: Perspectives from Providers and Customers 2 | Perspectives on Manufacturing Convergence The Connected Enterprise Manufacturing Convergence provides compelling business value: • Integrate the plant into the value chain globally • Drive greater manufacturing productivity • Reduce time-to-market and enable innovation • Reduce business risk and create sustainability Perspectives on Manufacturing Convergence | 3 Manufacturing Convergence Practices and Trends: Perspectives from Providers and Customers Global manufacturers face economically challenging times with a complex and crowded agenda. Today’s market pressures require manufacturers to constantly balance productivity, globalization, innovation and, sustainability. We all know the vision — The Connected Enterprise, Manufacturing 2.0, Digital Manufacturing. Pick your favorite label. Visualize the factory, seamlessly connected to the supply-chain, the enterprise, and the customer. Many manufacturers have implemented parts of this vision, most with varying degrees of success. But this vision is, of course, easier to describe than to implement. While it’s been decades since manufacturing pioneers developed the notion of “computer integrated manufacturing,” we still have far too many manufacturing and process operations which sit in an isolated state. It’s a tough economic environment like today that separates leaders from the pack. Four key market drivers – productivity, globalization, innovation and sustainability – have become so intertwined that it’s impossible to recognize one without considering the implications of the others. Successful manufacturers must learn to leverage Manufacturing Convergence, which merges traditionally separate functions and systems to create unique new capabilities. Manufacturing Convergence touches all corners of the manufacturer. This convergence of technology creates new, powerful combinations of functionality and capabilities to address challenges by merging manufacturing and production systems with the rest of the corporate enterprise. Just as the key market drivers can’t be separated, neither can the core disciplines of Manufacturing Convergence — information, control, communications and power. Manufacturers that recognize and act on this fact will be positioned to thrive in the global economy now and in the future. Innovation is no longer the exclusive venue of product designers. It can and must occur in all functions across the entire organization, and as you will read, does help businesses address the three other market drivers. We in manufacturing can play a leading role. We can model our entire operations digitally so that new production concepts could be tested virtually. We can quickly reconfigure manufacturing equipment in response to a shift in consumers’ preferences. We can tap the knowledge and experience of a rapidly aging workforce and combine it with the energy, creativity and digital mindset of next generation workers. With people, processes and technology in unison, manufacturers can achieve higher levels of business performance, turn resources into assets and discover unique opportunities for competitiveness. 4 | Perspectives on Manufacturing Convergence Perspectives from Industry Leaders Rockwell Automation has assumed a leadership role to help the industry reap the benefits of Manufacturing Convergence and drive it across the four automation disciplines of control and information through communications and power. We continue to invest heavily in convergence-ready products, services, partnerships and industry expertise necessary to advance convergence quickly and effectively. For this paper, we gathered a panel of experts from Rockwell Automation partners Cisco Systems, Dassault Systèmes Delmia Corporation and Microsoft, and our customers Alcoa, General Mills, PepsiAmericas and Tetra Pak to share their experiences with Manufacturing Convergence. They provide their perspectives about the business value of easily interconnected technology that links the supply chain, factory, distribution and customer base, You’ll read about the drivers for convergence, how leading companies use manufacturing convergence, the benefits, as well as the challenges, and where can convergence go next. First, for our technology partners, describe how your company has seen the use of technology converge and transform manufacturers. How have the objectives of technology changed and what is the impact of this evolution? Tell us about some of the technologies, such as virtualization and collaborative tools, that you provide and the benefits you have seen. Cisco, Wes Olson, Director, U.S. Manufacturing Sales: Today, CEOs are asking how we grow our companies in this environment. How do we take cost out of our operations? How do we innovate with new products, new services, and how do we do that with the speed and agility that is better and faster than our competition? CIOs then ask themselves how they align as a group to meet those business needs. What are the things they’re going to do to support business needs? How can they use the massive increase in the amount of data as well as the ability to access and parse that data to make real decisions that will impact the business? Everybody is being asked to do more with less so we need to look at technology for the long haul, not as a short term solution to a problem. Right now, in manufacturing, as well as a lot of other industries, we’re seeing massive changes globally in how we do business, and how we communicate and work with each other. We’re seeing rampant innovation, but we’re also seeing restricted capital and resources that we need to be able to use to manufacture our products. We’re seeing a transformation of businesses through technology and various network applications. Some of the megatrends that we see include social networking where people can think and work together. There’s virtualization of global processes and how we take technology from one location to another. The ability to bring together the components of that technology to produce new technologies, services, and products is unprecedented. Perspectives on Manufacturing Convergence | 5 Microsoft, Chris Colyer, director, Worldwide Manufacturing Operations: Our customers want to know how you use technology to drive down costs and how do you improve innovation. Not just in terms of product innovation, but business model innovation. To do that, we look at technology and convergence in four areas. First, we look at people in the manufacturing environment, their roles and how they get, use and exchange information. It’s no longer about acting locally, but globally. Technology presents a huge opportunity to share best practices and intellectual property across organizations and global boundaries. So, we’re thinking deeply about how collaboration tools can improve the ability of people to connect. The second area is physical assets — the billions of dollars tied up in plant equipment today. How can we help lower costs and gain efficiencies with the management of technology that’s running those physical assets? So, we focus on the systems management side to help manage those core assets in a way that is focused on the manufacturing environment while converging with skill sets traditionally housed in the IT department. Software virtualization presents a huge opportunity for systems management by building in systems redundancy and allowing you to better patch and keep systems running. And, RFID and sensor technology continues to gain momentum in the manufacturing space. This is not only in terms of track and trace but on the production side around maintenance and asset flow. We see a great opportunity from understanding Our customers want to know that information in real time and connecting it to the supply chain. how you use technology to The third area when thinking about technology and convergence is business processes and workflow. There’s still a host of manual drive down costs and how processes done in manufacturing today. Unfortunately with do you improve innovation.