Digital platforms high on the agenda for industrial manufacturers

27 March, 2018

Infosys states that every commentary on the future of manufacturing talks of only one thing – its transformation impelled by digital trends such as 3D printing, robotic automation, cognitive computing, industry clouds, smart supply chains and, naturally, IIoT. It adds that “the already blurry lines between operational technology and IT will be all but erased as the two integrate even more tightly”. Therefore, it would appear that it is not so much a question of what lies ahead as to one more focused on to what extent and how fast will individual companies’ adoption become.

With these issues in mind, Infosys has published a research report titled, Digital Outlook for the Industrial Manufacturing Industry. It highlights how digital technologies deployed at organisations are improving existing operations, solving new problems and creating new opportunities. Infosys commissioned independent market research company Vanson Bourne to undertake the research to better understand the use of digital technologies and key trends within nine different sectors. From October to December 2017, the quantitative and qualitative subset of the study was carried out, interviewing 1000 senior IT and business decision makers in organisations that use digital technologies. Respondents were from organisations with 1000 employees or more and US$500 million global annual revenue or higher across verticals sectors such as industrial manufacturing, automotive, life sciences, retail, utilities. CPG, healthcare, banking and insurance.

The report polled IT and business decision makers in the industrial manufacturing industry as part of a global survey to discover the opportunities presented by new digital technologies.

According to the industrial manufacturing companies surveyed, better cyber security (68%), using AI and automation in the back office (45%), and supplying directly to consumers through e-commerce (45%) are the most commonly reported trends for the next three years which will make a positive impact on their organisation.

Cyber security (73%), big data analytics (65%), enterprise cloud (61%), and AI (54%) are the four digital technologies being utilised the most by manufacturing companies today.

Industrial manufacturing enterprises plan to invest in digital technologies in the coming 12 months. IoT (71%), 3D printing of spare parts (68%), AI/OCR (optical character recognition) for vendor and staff contract management (67%), and cyber security (67%) have already received investments from most companies who consider them a trend for the coming three years. A majority of respondents said that their organisation could improve both existing skills and technologies in preparation for implementing the top trends of 2018 and beyond.

So, for the industrial manufacturing organisations that began to follow a digital transformation roadmap several years ago, 2017 saw many of them make some further major leaps forward. Infosys believes 2018 will see the industry continue its march towards Industry 4.0, helped along by top trends – cyber security to protect the organisation, AI and automation to improve the back office and e-commerce to enhance the customer experience. It adds that manufacturers are investing not only in these trends, but also in others that are yet to mature, indicating that they have their sights trained firmly on the future.

Encouragingly, it would appear that an increasing number of manufacturers are embracing key elements of the most potent technology today’s marketplace has to offer; technology that is positioned on a steep slope of further development and innovation and thus poised to offer greater refinements concerning connectivity, cost and time reduction, safety and energy efficiency – all the elements that can potentially secure a strong competitive edge for your company.

Ed Holden

Editor