No matter your businesses size, digital capability has become a driver of commercial sustainability over the last decade.
It has become a clear case of digitise or die.
This does not mean you have to go from an analogue starting point to fully digitised in one step, that is unrealistic. However, failure to start the digitisation journey will eventually be the undoing of your business.
There are a number of logical steps you can take that will build capability quickly, without massive investment, although some investment, particularly of management commitment, is necessary. However, like any investment, you should expect a return.
If you are starting the journey, the following is one set of the steps you might expect to mount, not necessarily in this order, but this is a common pattern I have seen.
Step 1. Assemble a clear picture of the currently available data. Mostly this will be ad hoc, and manually collected. Machinery purchased over the last few years will have the facility to capture data that is often unused, or under-utilised. This might simply require some connection between the data logger in the gear to your server, or better still, to a cloud application.
Step 2. Build a common system for the assembly of data that will enable it to be analysed in a consistent manner. Many factors have differing sets of ‘data languages’ based on legacy practices, and short-term convenience. Creating a common data language is important, and the best tool for doing this are to map all the processes in the factory, and break them into what is in lean parlance, ‘value streams’. The languages can then be tailored to make sense to all who meet them.
Step 3. Invest in further data capture. In the early stages, this is often a case of retro fitting devices onto existing machinery and downloading it all into a common data base. Depending on your operations this can be as simple as excel. There are many available low level options that are of a modular design, so that as capability grows, the modules can be implemented progressively.
Step 4. Invest in the capability to analyse the data and turn it into actionable insights. It is at this point that people become invaluable to the system. Any digital system can only respond to inputs in the way they have been instructed. They are no good at assessing the inputs for which there has been no or little precedent, you need people for those vital tasks.
Step 5. progressively implement data generation and analysis to inform operations. Use the feedback to constantly improve the quality of the data and the analysis that is used to manage and improve operations.
Step 6. Rinse and repeat. Digitisation is not a task with a completion date, it is a journey without an end.
As I headed towards the ‘publish’ button, a notification of a new program by the Victorian government popped into my inbox. The ‘Digital jobs for Manufacturing‘ program will fund training of employees of eligible Victorian manufacturers in a 12 week part time course run by Victorian universities. Have a look.
Header credit: Tom Gauld who takes an ironic, but widely felt frustration felt by SME’s at digitisation at www.tomgauld.com
