Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2020. Read them in this 12th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
By Keith Higgins, Vice
President of Digital Transformation, Rockwell
Automation
2020 Trends in Manufacturing: Digital Transformation, AR Workforce, and Automated OT Discovery Mature
2019 marked a critical inflexion point for wide scale roll
out of digital transformation via Industrial IoT (IIoT) tools in the
manufacturing segment. Now, many companies are now looking to benchmark their
state of digital operations and progress towards their digital transformation
goals. As digital journeys mature, keep an eye on the following industry
trends:
Scale: The magic word for
digital transformation in 2020
In 2019, we saw a 400% growth in digital transformation
projects moving through the post-implementation stage (per a recent Rockwell
study). The maturation of digitization projects will continue throughout 2020,
and with this trend, the industry will evolve from exploring the primary
benefits of data-driven solutions to understanding how these projects can be
used as a resource to help scale smart factory initiatives.
Digital transformation has reached its inflection point. As
organizations move their initiatives from project roll-out to continuous
process improvement in 2020, scaling becomes a key topic of conversation.
Specifically, the industry will tackle the following challenges as digital
business strategies scale and mature:
-
High
volumes of industrial infrastructure becoming
integrated/connected
-
Orchestrating
multisite roll-outs
-
Tighter
OT/IT integration as more OT infrastructure (devices, production lines, plants)
are tied into digital transformation initiatives
The AR workforce arrives: Enabling the "$6 Million Man"
of Manufacturing
One of the main concerns for industrial organizations in 2019 was the growing
skills shortage and the need for employee cross-training. As a potential
solution, employers looked to modernized technology initiatives, such as
augmented reality (AR), enabled by digital transformation, to gain an advantage
in recruiting, training, and employee development.
For example, novice workers can use augmented and mixed reality headsets
for training in a digital environment to learn how to handle problems to
develop specific skill sets in the industrial environment with high precision
and little training before they're ever exposed to them, such as increased line
speed, quality issues, machinery downtime, and hazardous conditions.
In previous years, these solutions were still considered mostly
hypothetical, yet in 2020, we will see industrial organizations implement fully
deployed AR training initiatives. This shift to "bionic" workers will combine
machine and human capabilities to not only increase productivity, tighten
production schedules, maximize revenue and protect workers from the injuries
associated with repetitive physical tasks, but also develop and enhance human
capital from generation to generation via more efficient training.
OT discovery becomes automated
Smart manufacturing requires convergence between IT and OT data to drive
visibility, collaboration, and efficiency within plants and facilities and
across operations. However, two decades after automation networks on the plant
floor became ubiquitous, it's still generally true that information
accessibility between plant floor devices (OT) - and the people and systems
that can create new value from them (IT) - proves to be a significant
challenge.
To remove the complexity and domain expertise required to access plant
floor devices and systems, manufacturers are turning to auto-discovery tools
that identify assets, collect and integrate data with full OT context, and
produce models fully shareable with IT systems. By connecting existing OT
infrastructure to smart factory networks and IT initiatives, and continuously
generating relevant data insights and measurements, auto-discovery capabilities
reduce the technical knowledge and time needed by OT teams to map industrial
infrastructure and improve operational efficiency.
Gartner
predicts that 50% of OT providers will partner with IT-centric providers for
IoT offerings over the next year. Indeed, in 2020, effective OT/IT integration
will become key to accelerating innovation and achieving productivity gains at
digital transformation scale.
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About the Author
Keith
Higgins is the Vice President of Marketing, Digital Transformation and
Industrial IoT at Rockwell Automation. He brings over 20 years of experience in
marketing to the industrial leader. Prior to joining Rockwell, Keith served as
VP of Marketing at FogHorn, an edge computing solution provider, and Chief
Marketing Officer at RiskVision, a risk intelligence solution acquired by
Resolver.