A recent survey showed 88% of companies said that they were undergoing digital transformation, however only 25% understood what it was.
As a manufacturer, the term digital transformation may be foreign, but in fact, manufacturers have been using digital technologies for many years already. If you think about it, EDI has been commonplace for a long time, which was one of the first digital capabilities that were embraced.
Digital transformation in the manufacturing industry
Today, with the advancement of technology, there are many new options that manufacturers can use to improve their business in many different areas. One of these is the Internet Of Things (IoT) which as a result of communication developments, means that manufacturers can now get access to data that they couldn’t a few years ago.
You may think that this sounds easy, and as a recent survey showed, 88% of companies said that they were undergoing digital transformation, however only 25% understood what it was!
So here lies the issue, many people are talking about digital transformation because they have seen it in magazines, on websites, and their peers keep on going on about it, but the majority of people don’t know how it can benefit their business.
As an example, what would you do if you were a manufacturer and could get live data from your installed equipment automatically without having to send an engineer to get it for you?
What value would this add to your business?
If you had a service contract with the customer, you could proactively let them know when the machine needed maintenance as opposed to just doing quarterly visits. It could make the difference to them ensuring the machine was performing at its optimum resulting in increased efficiency.
Or, if you don’t currently service your machine, by having this data it would give you a revenue-generating opportunity to start providing this service. Both of these are just two options which digital transformation can give you, with the result being a happier customer, which at the end of the day, is what we all want!
At IFS, we have experience in digital transformation. We have and are currently working on, many customer projects in this area. If you want to hear more about my thoughts on digital transformation and what it means to manufacturers, then please listen to my podcast.
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