Virtual Rethink: An Embrace of All Things Digital

Posted by Penelope Brown | Oct 27, 2020 | Ideas & Insights, 2020 Virtual Rethink MLC Summit

Rethink: The Manufacturing Leadership Council Summit kicked off on October 27, for the first time as a virtual event since its inception. MLC Co-Founder, Vice President and Executive Director David Brousell kicked off the event with remarks focused on the immense disruption that manufacturing has faced during a challenging year – and the ways that digital technology has helped organizations rise to the occasion.
Brousell cited MLC’s own research that demonstrated how the ability to adapt to rapid change was clearly linked to an organization’s digital maturity. In May, 67% of respondents to an MLC poll said digital technologies were important to their ability to respond to the crisis, whether it was shifting production lines, enabling remote capabilities, or mitigating supply chain disruptions.
Also noted were the challenges to developing a digital-first organization, including the mind-numbing volume of data that manufacturers can now acquire – everything from equipment utilization to product lifecycle to customer satisfaction. While acquiring that data is the first step, it is essential to have the ability to organize that data, rely on its accuracy, and make decisions based on that information. As an industry, many manufacturers still struggle to achieve this level of digital mastery.
Additionally, executive leadership is now tasked not just with needing traditional business skills but also digital acumen – an area where many find themselves still lagging.
“Perceptions change as a greater sense of urgency comes on,” Brousell said. “It seems the digital revolution is no longer in the future, but it is now.”

2020 Manufacturing Leadership Award: Winners Recognized at Virtual Gala

Posted by Penelope Brown | Oct 8, 2020 | Uncategorized, Ideas & Insights

Winners of the 2020 Manufacturing Leadership Awards were honored at the 16^th annual ML Awards Gala, hosted by the National Association of Manufacturers’ Manufacturing Leadership Council. The event took place online.
Gerald Johnson, Executive Vice President, Global Manufacturing at GM, was selected as the Manufacturing Leader of the Year for his leadership in GM’s pivot to ventilator production in a partnership with Ventec Life Systems, code named Project V.
Corteva Agriscience was selected as Large Enterprise Manufacturer of the Year for its strong nominations in multiple project categories, using data to streamline operations, boost supply chain resilience, and meet demand.
Humtown Product was named Small/Medium Enterprise Manufacturer of the Year. A longtime leader in the metalcasting industry, the company utilized 3D printing to revolutionize production, boosting its capabilities and allowing it to serve new markets and customers.
“The need for digital transformation in manufacturing is more urgent than ever, and these companies and leaders are examples of some of the best,” said MLC Co-Founder, Vice President, and Executive Director David R. Brousell. “I commend this year’s winners for their noteworthy accomplishments and for continuing to expand what is possible.”
Also honored at the ML Awards Gala was Jeff Moad, creator of the Manufacturing Leadership Awards and its director until his retirement in 2019. Since its inception in 2005, the awards program has recognized thousands of projects from global manufacturers, and Jeff was instrumental in creating its mission and leading its development.
Nine recipients of ML High Achiever Awards were also announced. The High Achiever Awards are presented to the project that receives the highest score from the judges in that category.
High Achiever Award Winners:

• Lockheed Martin in the Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Analytics Leadership category for F-35 Augmented Reality Shop Floor Mobility
• Merck & Co., Inc., in the Collaborative Innovation Leadership category for Digital Fingerprinting
• Humtown Products in the Engineering and Production Technology Leadership category for Commercialization of 3D Printing in the Metal Casting Industry
• IBM in the Enterprise Integration Technology Leadership category for Migrating Supply Chain Quality Workload to Cloud
• Cooley Group in the Industrial Internet of Things Leadership category for Cooley Group Transforms Legacy Machinery into Smart Tech
• Hologic Inc. in the Operational Excellence category for Building a Culture of Operational Excellence
• Starkey Hearing Technologies in the Supply Chain Leadership category for Starkey Supply Chain Management Transformation
• The Boeing Company in the Sustainability Leadership category for Diverting Waste to Landfill While Upcycling Excess Airplane Carbon Fiber
• Nexteer Automotive in the Talent Management category for Nexteer for m.e. Global Talent Management and Training Program

 

The manufacturing sector faces a slew of challenges due to the pandemic. A recent survey by the U.S. National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) found that nearly four out of five manufacturing companies expect a financial hit from COVID-19. More than half (53.1%) anticipate a change in operations primarily due to the injection of new technologies and reimagined business processes.
Writing for Forbes magazine, Anna-Katrina Shedletsky, CEO of Instrumental, said: “Between solutions that leverage the power of the cloud for visibility and automation that optimizes work, necessity will drive invention: manufacturers will do five years of innovation in the next 18 months.”
Indeed, the cloud will be a staple for every manufacturer’s technology stack in these challenging times. Even before the pandemic, the cloud was poised to bring undeniable benefits for manufacturers. It includes a 22% rise in profitability and a 23% decrease in operational costs, on average. And spurred by the pandemic, manufacturers are likely to ramp up their investments in the cloud. In IDC’s wave 3 of its COVID-19 Impact on IT Spending Survey, analysts predicted, “a significant increase in demand for cloud software”.
Five Drivers of Change
There are five clear drivers for this trend. Across industries, the demand for cloud infrastructure has seen a sharp uptick, growing a record 34% YoY in Q1 of 2020. This surge is because the cloud dramatically shrinks their dependence on physical, on-premise infrastructure, and consequently, physical proximity. This facet has immediate benefits for companies that are following social distancing measures. In the long-term, the cloud could unlock better connectivity and more seamless supply chains, overcoming supply chain disruptions arising from COVID-19 as expected by 35.5% of companies in the IDC survey.
These benefits span short, near, and long-term impact areas for manufacturers:

1. In the short-term, the cloud enables business continuity. 

Several of the critical activities on the manufacturing value chain, from product design to marketing and customer service, rely on in-person contact. The cloud eliminates this dependence by providing an “anytime, anywhere” platform for communication. This has immense implications for new product development (NPD) as companies no longer need to press pause on innovation. Still, they can stick to their planned go-to-market (GTM) strategies by leveraging the cloud. Similarly, on the operational side, the cloud can help maintain business continuity across people processes, production, and even marketing/sales via online platforms.

2. The cloud simplifies compliance with EHS regulations

Employee health and safety (EHS) regulations are a key focus area for manufacturers even in the best of times. With the onset of the pandemic, this demands even more attention for manufacturing companies. Business continuity and growth cannot compromise on employee health in any way. The cloud allows manufacturers to operate near-lights-out production, assembly, and shipping, thanks to cloud-based automation. Employees can work from the safety of their homes, cementing their trust in the employer and strengthening long-term relationships.

3. In the near-term, the cloud extends the manufacturing ecosystem

The pandemic has compelled business leaders to rethink their existing procurement and distribution networks, lying stress on localized availability and supply chains. When it comes to global pathways, the cloud helps to overcome curbs on international travel and stay connected. It is possible to monitor and manage this entire landscape on a cloud-based platform from the safety of one’s home. The convergence of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) via cloud-solutions makes it easier to orchestrate the manufacturing ecosystem remotely.

4. In the long-term, the cloud will accelerate process modernization

Business leaders were discussing the importance of the fourth industrial revolution even before the pandemic. Now, it is no longer a mere possibility. COVID-19 has pushed manufacturers to reduce dependence on hands-on processes, physical infrastructure, and physical workspaces. A modernized manufacturing enterprise, where cloud-based artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI and ML) scans EHS data to spot non-compliance; where a cloud-based contact center replaces hundreds of employees working within a confined campus; and where cloud-based project management platforms ensure on-time delivery, will soon be the new normal.

5. Cost optimization is a recurring benefit of migrating to the cloud

It’s no secret that traditional, on-premise infrastructure is prone to severe inefficiencies. Companies cannot dynamically allocate resources, leading to resource waste and challenges in scaling up at peak demand periods. The cloud could help manufacturers improve their bottom line by maximizing technology investments. It could also drive topline revenues by enabling innovation and business growth when the competition stutters.
Beyond the Pandemic
Enterprise migration to the cloud shouldn’t be reactive. After all, it has far-reaching benefits extending well into a manufacturer’s long-term roadmap. It will help business leaders get a step ahead of the competition, leapfrogging into the industry 4.0 era, and ready to take on fresh opportunities post-COVID-19. This requires well-articulated cloud adoption strategies encompassing every sphere of business, starting today.

The coronavirus pandemic has tested manufacturers’ resilience in unprecedented ways, straining supply networks, shuttering factories, and pushing some industry sectors to the brink. Now more than ever, the times call for an agile, adaptable, and responsive workforce.
Manufacturers are continuing to hire during the outbreak, albeit often with modified practices such as virtual interviews and delayed onboarding. Some are responding to an uptick in demand or adjustments to production, while others are positioning themselves for the eventual upswing. In either case, manufacturing’s chronic shortage of skilled talent adds another layer of challenge to the process.
One source of skilled talent with technical know-how is the military veteran community. Veterans are motivated, able to respond to change and trained to stay calm under pressure. They have often been given technical training during their military career, and many are willing to relocate for good job opportunities as they transition to civilian life.
The Manufacturing Institute created the Heroes MAKE America program to provide skills training to veterans to prepare them for careers in manufacturing and then connect that talent with hiring managers at manufacturers nationwide. In addition to instruction, veteran participants also have engagement opportunities at manufacturing facilities to meet with other veteran employees, hiring managers, and plant leadership.
In the era of COVID-19 restrictions, those engagement opportunities have moved online to a program called Heroes Connect. This means that manufacturers anywhere are now able to connect with veterans who are ready to be hired. Heroes MAKE America currently operates at five military installations and has placed program graduates in 37 states and three countries.
The resilience exhibited by our nation’s military veterans makes them an ideal fit for moving to the front lines of manufacturing. In this critical time for our industry, our economy, and our nation, it is more vital than ever to build a connection to this important group.
If you’d like to know more about how your company can participate in Heroes MAKE America and build its outreach to the veteran community, contact Babs Chase at [email protected].       

In these particularly challenging times, business operations are being disrupted in unprecedented ways. Amid extreme and sudden changes in supply and demand, manufacturers are putting together action plans and recovery initiatives to manage the current pandemic crisis, and they’re looking to automation to help lighten the load.
As an industry heavily reliant on dependable processes, manufacturing is primed with opportunities for robotic process automation (RPA), which delivers huge gains in efficiency. These use cases discuss RPA and its uses specific to manufacturing, outlining four common solutions the technology is supplying the industry.

1. Data Migration

As manufacturers see widespread adoption of IoT equipment, upgrading legacy systems is inevitable. But that is no small feat. Luckily, it is a perfect use case for RPA.
Legacy systems often aren’t easily capable of sharing data with other systems. Custom interfaces must be built to allow the transformation of data before it is loaded into the new system. But because RPA bots can work independent of APIs, RPA acts as an intermediary between new and old systems, efficiently integrating the applications. What’s more, bots can be programmed to monitor the migration along the way, flagging and correcting any inconsistencies in real time. This saves time and money on auditing with precise, error-free results.
2. Secure Proof of Deliveries (PODs)
PODs are a critical component to customer service, but they can also be a tremendous drain on resources, leading to errors, delays, and an increase in days sales outstanding (DSO). It’s a tedious process that is time-intensive and high-risk for human error. With RPA, bots can regularly query carrier tracking systems and link the shipping data to the original orders in warehouse management systems—all without human assistance.
This relieves employees of time-consuming tracking work, freeing them to do more direct customer service and other important tasks. It also improves response times and DSO metrics and supports strong, consistent cash flow.
3. CRM and Sales Order Integration
Sales order integration is another common area RPA is helping manufacturers (and really businesses in general). It’s no secret that sales staff are usually quite skilled at selling. Their work depends on relationship building and constructive communication—activities in which humans excel. But there is often much more involved with the sales process than just the sale itself. There are estimates, product availability, order processing, fulfillments, logistics and more. Sometimes, these tasks are further complicated by being completed in different departments. Either way, the sales cycle can be a challenging process with hang-ups and headaches.
With RPA, you can allow your people to perform work aligned to their unique skills, while bots automate the rest of it. Once the salesperson enters their prospecting opportunities into the CRM, the bot can take the info from there, checking pricing, cross-referencing other software for product availability, auto-generating quotes and shipping times, and more. Once an order is approved, the bot can extract and validate sales order data and send it downstream to other systems to optimize the entire sales lifecycle. All the while, people continue to do their best work, generating leads, building relationships and selling products.
4. Regulatory Compliance
The world is a rapidly changing place. And in manufacturing, that unfortunately means changing compliance requirements. From safety protocols to individual product regulations, regulatory compliance is a part of the industry. RPA simplifies the process, providing accurate data processing, detailed records in the event of an audit, and real-time monitoring of all bot activities. And because the technology is rules-based, it can be updated at any time to comply with new regulations.
These are just a few of the most common applications we see with RPA. And it’s important to understand that the technology is only just the beginning of process optimization. As the foundation for process mining and process intelligence, the potential of RPA—and its ROI—truly becomes limitless.
 
 

Why should you consider nominating your team for a Manufacturing Leadership Award? One word: Innovation. Your company depends on it to stay competitive in the digital era. How can you inspire your team to discover your next big idea?
Nothing drives innovation quite like competition. When your team beats out other industry leaders to win a prestigious award, something incredible happens. They continue to innovate and work even harder to help your company thrive.
The Manufacturing Leadership Awards is the ultimate innovator’s competition. It’s the only award that recognizes achievements in Manufacturing 4.0. It rewards forward-thinking manufacturers in front of their peers and fuels further innovations—to move the industry forward.
But is it really worth your time and effort to enter an awards competition? The short answer is yes. Benefits are numerous and include improved employee engagement and retention. Engaged employees are more likely to share ideas that can improve efficiencies, enhance your processes and reduce costs.
Additionally, winning a Manufacturing Leadership Award can reinforce your customers’ decision to do business with you. You could also gain new business through networking at the Manufacturing Leadership Awards Gala along with highly publicized awards recognition.
The Manufacturing Leadership Awards nominations are now open. This year’s competition includes 12 categories – nine for company-level project awards and three for individual leaders. New for 2020, each project category will include a small/medium enterprise high achiever award to recognize the most innovative small businesses. A new Community Service Leadership individual award has also been introduced to recognize leaders who have had a measurable impact on giving back to their local community.
Nominate today to reward your team and drive innovation at your company. Learn more at https://mlawards.manufacturingleadershipcouncil.com.
 

Is U.S. industry lagging behind in its adoption of Manufacturing 4.0?

“It probably is,” said John Fleming, Chairman of the Manufacturing Leadership Council’s Board of Governors and former Executive Vice President of Global Manufacturing & Labor Affairs, Ford Motor Co., during his on-screen speech at last week’s 2019 ML Summit in California.
“But there’s still a huge opportunity ahead for U.S. industry, and now is the time to accelerate its efforts,” he added.
Industry predictions suggest that around $220 billion will be spent globally by industrial companies on adopting Manufacturing 4.0 technologies and approaches by 2025.
Taking a global perspective, Fleming identified Germany as currently leading the global M4.0 pack, having first coined the Industry 4.0 name back in 2011 to highlight the concept of the digital industrial revolution. Japan and the rest of Europe he considers as “fast followers”; while he believes China is swiftly catching up thanks to its government-led initiatives such as China 2025.
The U.S. meanwhile, has good federal funding but is slow at implementation, and while the federal network of manufacturing innovation institutes look at the what and why, U.S. companies now need to focus on the how, who, and when.
Those companies need to be willing to learn about and embrace new M4.0 technologies, develop the organizational structures and corporate cultures that are capable of harnessing the power of the data these technologies create, and nurture a spirit of digital acumen among both its leaders and employees to help drive efficiencies, accelerate innovation, fill the workforce gap, and deliver global competitive advantage.
“It will be very difficult for the U.S. to grow competitively in the future without increasing the speed of M4.0 adoption,” he warned.
“The M4.0 opportunity is now,” he added, “but we need to move quickly.”

Data is manufacturing’s new gold, but much like any raw material, it only has value once it’s mined, refined, and polished to make it shine.
Manufacturers generally have no problem collecting massive amounts of data, but leveraging it to its best advantage is still a tall order for many. At the 2019 Manufacturing Leadership Summit, Hitachi Vantara Director of Digital Solutions for Manufacturing Sath Rao shared insights on some of the tools and technologies that are helping with that challenge.
“It’s the ability to realize that data is not just outward; data is also something we need to look at monetizing,” Rao said. “In the not too distant future, companies that are not operating at peak efficiency might want to sell off their plant operating data for AI systems to learn about their challenges and issues and then educate other factories” from those insights.
Rao says it’s often about “choosing to win,” and also about choosing uses cases that tie back to the overall corporate mission to gain more attention and support from C-suite leadership. “The research is already out there,” he said. “The KPIs from the (World Economic Forum’s) Lighthouse factories are giving an idea of what’s possible.
“Instead of ‘don’t fix something that isn’t broken,’ the new paradigm with data will be to break things to fix them, because of the power to look at data across siloes for new insight and discovering new points of improvement,” Rao said.  “In my opinion, the factories of the future will only be possible if you are realizing the data factories that are available today.”

“In reality, we would not be here today if innovation wasn’t at the core of who we are.” – Regan Gallo, Operations Director and Industry 4.0 Project Lead, Certain-Teed Corp., Saint-Gobain
When asked to describe a company that’s more than 350 years old, the term innovative is not often one that comes to mind. However, Saint-Gobain has withstood the test of time by taking a strategic approach to boosting innovation. To move their business into the next 350 years, the company is focused on their customers and the products they will demand due to the impact of global paradigm shifts: digitalization, urbanization, resource scarcity and recycling, climate change, global economic growth, and new mobilities such as ride sharing, electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles.
As described in a case study presented at the Manufacturing Leadership Summit by Regan Gallo, the company has developed a manufacturing-focused innovation initiative that has shown results. Saint-Gobain filed for nearly 400 patents in 2018, and one out of four products the company sells today didn’t exist five years ago. Not bad for any company, much less one whose first project was a seventeenth-century commission from Louis XIV for the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
In 2014 the company began to discuss ways that it could embrace emerging technologies and the industrial digital revolution and determined that it could lead much of its innovation efforts through manufacturing. With more than 1,000 manufacturing facilities worldwide, Saint-Gobain determined it was best to develop innovation efforts at a few selected sites that demonstrated a mix of the right culture and readiness. The focus is on establishing and developing best practices at these sites with projects that cover a wide array of the company’s product portfolio, with an eye toward rolling out the lessons learned across all manufacturing operations throughout the enterprise.
The company also promoted internal collaboration through its first ever North American Manufacturing Summit, a live event where the company’s manufacturing employees from North American sites came together to meet and share ideas.
Not forgetting external sources of innovation, Saint-Gobain also looks for mission-aligned startups they might be able to further develop, and has introduced an Essentials of Manufacturing career development program to embed college students into operations.
By keeping attuned to current and future challenges and developing both internal and external collaboration initiatives, Saint-Gobain is positioning itself for another few centuries in business.

“Our purpose is to use M4.0 to achieve more customer-focused innovation, not simply to change all our plants to be digital. We believe that if it’s doesn’t add value to our customers, we shouldn’t be doing it at all,” explained Dr. Rebecca Teeters, Corporate Manufacturing Operations Director, Film and Materials Resource Division at 3M during her insightful speech on the first morning of the 2019 Manufacturing Leadership Summit in Huntington Beach CA, today.
At 3M, she stressed, the ultimate goal of M4.0 is to create smart value streams that better serve its customers. To do that, it needs to make its people better and smarter, and empower them as part of a continuously improving performance culture. And to do that, it aims to use new digital tools in such a way that they will help make the work of those people easier and give them the opportunity and power to make change, improvement, and innovation happen.
And, added Teeters, that requires a different kind of company culture. “We truly believe in the collaborative democratized environment, which doesn’t work with a traditional command and control structure,” she said,
So when 3M looks at M4.0 opportunities, she continued, “we realized that we should really be leveraging new technologies to make our people smarter, not simply to create digital factories.”
One of the challenges, she noted, is to move out what 3M calls ‘pilot purgatory’, where the focus is often only on proving the technology itself. So 3M not longer uses the word ‘pilot’ in any of its M4.0 deployments. Instead, it uses phrases like ‘first applications’ and ‘first use cases’, which doesn’t raise the question about “whether we are going to do it,” she explained, “it’s about how we are going to scale it.”
This approach, she suggests, is essential to increasing the velocity of change and helping to empower and engage people, all supported by a highly customer-focused, end-to-end digital ecosystem.
It is also the way that the almost 120-year old 3M organization, where a substantial 54,000 of its 90,000 employees work directly in manufacturing, can truly harness the power of new digital M4.0 tools to continue to enhance its century-old reputation as a hothouse of innovation in the future.