Manufacturing

Digital Transformation in Manufacturing

The manufacturing industry generates most of the world’s data, but very few manufacturing companies are able to effectively use that data for growth or profitability. The digital revolution is knocking at the door of manufacturers through innovations in the IoT, machine learning, cloud technology, big data, and other areas. Across the broad manufacturing industry however, which includes heavy equipment, semiconductors, aerospace, food and drink, and many other specialties, many companies are not quite ready.

while the majority of manufacturing industry executives acknowledge the importance of digital transformation, only 5% are satisfied with their current digital strategies.

Forbes’ Top 5 Digital Transformation Trends In Manufacturing

An overwhelming 33% of respondents cited readiness of process and systems as the obstacle to digital transformation.

According to a SpencerStuart survey on the industrial sector.

Obstacles to Digital Transformation

Many manufacturing companies are investing in big data, cloud, the IoT, and other modern technologies and frameworks, but many are challenged by petabyte-scale volumes of machine generated data and field data. For many manufacturing companies, the data silos remain, presenting an ongoing challenge to data architects. These obstacles severely limit the number of actionable insights that can be gained from the manufacturing and supply chain process.

Data Virtualization Holds the Key

Data virtualization has proven itself to be the most innovative and comprehensive data fabric that can stitch together the widest range of data sources in real time without any physical data movement. The modern manufacturing value chain involves data that runs the gamut from highly structured all the way to completely unstructured data. Many manufacturing companies manage data that is scattered across cloud and on-premises systems. Data virtualization helps connect the widest varieties of data, across on-premises and cloud systems, for data analytics, a single view of the manufacturing process, data services, and many other applications that data stakeholders use to streamline the manufacturing process, increase manufacturing yield, or improve manufacturing quality.