Digital Transformation in Manufacturing: 4 Obstacles to Overcome
Digital transformation in manufacturing comes with a host of benefits-but also with hefty deployment challenges and difficulties. Are you ready for what's ahead?
These obstacles range from overcoming employee resistance to integrating new technology with existing systems—not to mention concerns about data security, implementation costs and the need for your team to develop specialized skills.
To help you navigate the journey successfully, let’s explore ways to overcome common issues that arise during digital transformation in manufacturing.
1. Inaccurate production and maintenance data
In traditional manufacturing environments, production and maintenance data are often entered manually instead of using automated systems. This makes it difficult to handle increasing volumes of data. It also results in inaccuracies, incomplete information and incorrect timelines that prevent you from seeing the bigger picture.
For example, due to the problems associated with manually entering data, manufacturers often struggle to calculate and track key performance indicators (KPIs) like:
- Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)
- Production line efficiency
- Equipment performance
This creates business blind spots. Without visibility into these KPIs-which automated data collection provides-it's difficult to formulate decisions and improve performance over time.
Because digital transformation relies on accurate, real-time data for decision-making, it’s critical to leave manual methods behind for automated data collection.
2. Aging plant equipment
As you walk a plant floor, you'll likely find decades-old equipment made by different manufacturers. After all, investing in new equipment is costly. Working with existing equipment is often assumed to be faster and easier for staff members, since they're familiar with how to operate and maintain it. And unlike IT equipment, OT machines are built to operate for years.
Legacy equipment makes digital transformation in manufacturing more complicated, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to seamlessly integrate old equipment with digital systems. It simply requires planning and a partner that can help you support legacy systems for as long as possible while you deploy new equipment.
Migration scenarios are key to carrying out digital transformation in a practical, cost-effective way according to your own timeline. They help you prepare for the future while maximizing investments you’ve already made in technology and equipment.
3. Incompatible network devices and systems
Different equipment and platforms rely on different protocols to communicate. These protocols determine things like:
- How the machine connects
- How data is extracted from the machine
- Which machines it can “talk” to
Bringing all these systems together to share data—despite the different protocols they use—is critical to digital transformation in manufacturing, but it can be challenging. Discrepancies create data silos by preventing proper connections between assets.
To overcome this, explore ways to bring different systems and protocols together, such as through translation, without replacements or upgrades. This allows legacy equipment to exchange and use data securely, no matter what protocol it relies on or what generation it is.
4. Lack of collaboration and knowledge-sharing between departments
Digital transformation in manufacturing isn’t only about upgrading systems and technology. It’s about rethinking processes and workflows to improve efficiency and eliminate redundancies and bottlenecks. This requires close collaboration between departments to unify goals and establish measurable targets, ensure integration, share data and solve problems.
While achieving effective communication and coordination can be challenging, it’s important to make it a priority by doing things like:
- Forming teams made up of stakeholders from different departments so they can work on specific projects together
- Establishing and maintaining regular communication so everyone is in the loop
- Fostering a welcoming environment where questions, ideas, feedback and concerns are heard and validated
- Recognizing collaborative efforts and rewarding jobs well done
- Helping employees acquire new skills, such as data analysis, so they can adapt and see the value of digital transformation in manufacturing
Finding a partner that understands your production process and technology
Selecting the right partner is essential to support digital transformation in manufacturing. The advisor you choose must have a comprehensive understanding of your production processes, technologies and requirements, as well as deep industry knowledge and experience so they can apply lessons learned to the work they do for you.
While digital transformation in manufacturing presents numerous challenges, especially in the early stages, success is achievable with:
- A clear strategy
- A well-planned implementation process
- Strong support from all employees
- A partner that can lead you down the right path
As a provider of complete connection solutions, the experts who work in Belden’s Customer Innovation Center (CIC) have extensive experience in guiding manufacturers through their digital transformation journeys.
And they've gone through the digital transformation journey themselves. What Belden has done with its own plants is something we can do for you, too, to help you achieve total visibility and gain a complete view of your plant floor and plant operations.
Weiterführende Links:
Über den Autor
Hanyi Zhang joined the Belden team in 2015. He consults with customers on network design and provides them with technical training on technology topics, including cybersecurity, wireless and network redundancy.