The 7 Steps To A Smart Factory
Every manufacturing company climbs the same seven steps toward a self-directed factory. I walk them in order, from organizing and centralizing data to shared dashboards, prediction, and routines that act on their own. The early layers decide how far the later ones carry you.
Every manufacturing company goes through 7 steps to reach a smart, self-driving factory. I talked about this last week in a presentation at TUWI Next 2023. Here is the replay.
I wrote about this before:
The 7 steps are:
1. Organize: map processes, analyze waste, and document the vision, mission, strategy and goals of your transformation.
2. Centralize data: a modern ERP is a must to keep up. You have to rely on your data 100%. Garbage in, garbage out.
3. Connect systems: link CAM, CAD and MES apps to the central system so retyping disappears and data flows both ways. Go best-of-breed: use apps to fill the gaps.
I wrote about this before:
4. Data to information: pull all your data into a central database, through data warehousing, an ERP database or low-code apps with multiple sources. For example, Power BI with DataMarts.
5. Enterprise-wide knowledge: build dashboards you can share across the organization, including the shop floor. Let the team say what it wants to see. Bonus points if you build the dashboard yourself, because your data is already structured.
6. Predictive analytics: use forecasting to predict the future. Let algorithms estimate machine cycle times, prices, stock levels and more.
7. Self-directed factory: link this to workflows that act on their own, like ordering products, running self-driving vehicles or starting a robot cell.
