We started collecting systematically feedback about situational awareness in manufacturing from our customers in fall 2021. We have talked to our customers in Finland, Germany, Italy, Sweden, UK and USA. Thank you all who have helped us to gather this valuable information and learn about your needs and challenges related to manufacturing situational awareness.
We focus in this blog post on part / component manufacturing information related learnings. The questions we asked are the following:
These questions raised lively discussions ranging from shopfloor devices related information to top floor related business intelligence information. People offered their input from production operations management, from production development and from business development perspectives. Obviously these perspectives are tightly linked into one’s role.
We have talked to business decision makers in small and midsized OEM and subcontracting companies. Decision makers we met are typically CEOs or production/factory directors in their companies. We have also talked to those responsible for daily operations and production development, i.e., production managers and production planners. Additionally, we have had several meetings with large global OEMs and talked to their production development people.
Apparently situation varies a lot between companies, depending on their focus and capabilities related to manufacturing situational awareness. There are many large OEMs, who have invested time and people to develop capabilities and solutions in this area. At the same time, smaller companies often cannot even get started due to lack of skills and resources.
We focus in this blog on our learnings from small and midsize manufacturers. We will offer perspectives from shopfloor operations, production development, production management and top management perspectives.
Often times people approach situational awareness from the shopfloor devices perspective, gathering and understanding machine tool status and metrics. This is a good starting point, yet not enough alone to achieve greater results. We will come back to this later in this blog post. We were surprised to learn how few manufacturers have proper shopfloor device monitoring in place. There are various reasons for this. Some manufacturers are disappointed with the quality and value provided by those solutions that they have adapted. E.g., we had several customers bringing up that sensor-based or other lightweight solutions are often unreliable and even provide misleading information. Another, often mentioned, area for dissatisfaction is that customers feel left alone with the problems they have related to machine monitoring. Customer are not experts in this and they shouldn’t need to be.
Customers deserve solutions that are provided as a service or turnkey solution are reliable and can be trusted. Reliable machine monitoring solution forms good foundation for production situational awareness. Proper monitoring solutions provide you with real-time and history information on machine status, i.e., is machine offline, online, idle, running, cutting, error and error reasons (what else). This information enables utilization and availability monitoring, reporting and analysis as well prompt action taking and time saving on the shopfloor. Furthermore you need this information for production and business development actions.
Many manufacturers have invested in production IT systems and solutions over the years. These production IT systems fall into such categories as ERP, CRM, APS, MES, to name most typical ones. These systems typically serve a specific purpose, while they also require some common information to be shared across these systems, e.g. production orders or part master data. ERP naturally is almost without an exception the master system for all these systems. Our customers told us that they typically have 5-7 IT systems critical to production.
However, despite such advantages, so many companies are still struggling with information sharing. We have discussed with large and mid-sized OEMs as well as subcontractors and found out a few reasons behind the hesitation of sharing information. First, it is common that companies fear sharing information can be risky. Companies worry that their competitors will use the information against them, or that it will be misused in some way. Second, there’s a cultural barrier to overcome. Traditionally, companies have been very protective of their proprietary information, and breaking down those barriers can be difficult. Lastly, it is not uncommon that companies often lack resources and tools for streamlined sharing and collaboration with stakeholders, or information is scattered in different IT systems. This not only makes it difficult to collaborate throughout the supply chain, but also wastes the potential of the existing data that companies possess.
Overcoming these challenges is necessary, nevertheless. A single data solution that integrates and analyzes data from different IT systems, allowing for sharing information between stakeholders in production would be one solution. Leveraging open APIs and collaboration features, this solution would allow the involving stakeholders to know what is expected, and what would be their individual handprint on the overall success of their manufacturing. The platform can also allow different parties to access relevant data in real time, without compromising security. Built-in data analytics tools can also help companies make sense of large amounts of information and identify trends and opportunities from their existing database. In addition, with configurable user and role-based views, companies can decide which information will be shared, with whom, and under what conditions, thus establishing clear guidelines for information sharing. They can also establish protocols for protecting sensitive information and monitoring its use. The solution enables creating a framework for sharing information, from which companies can reduce the perceived risks and build trust among stakeholders. Ultimately, companies can improve the overall performance of the whole supply chain.
For more inspiration, watch this video to see how Wärtsilä, a leading supplier for marine and energy markets, is surfing this wave of ecosystem thinking and collaboration mindset. They are pioneering and bringing their plan to life, starting with streamlining their information on the shopfloor to relevant stakeholders.
However, despite such advantages, so many companies are still struggling with information sharing. We have discussed with large and mid-sized OEMs as well as subcontractors and found out a few reasons behind the hesitation of sharing information. First, it is common that companies fear sharing information can be risky. Companies worry that their competitors will use the information against them, or that it will be misused in some way. Second, there’s a cultural barrier to overcome. Traditionally, companies have been very protective of their proprietary information, and breaking down those barriers can be difficult. Lastly, it is not uncommon that companies often lack resources and tools for streamlined sharing and collaboration with stakeholders, or information is scattered in different IT systems. This not only makes it difficult to collaborate throughout the supply chain, but also wastes the potential of the existing data that companies possess.
Overcoming these challenges is necessary, nevertheless. A single data solution that integrates and analyzes data from different IT systems, allowing for sharing information between stakeholders in production would be one solution. Leveraging open APIs and collaboration features, this solution would allow the involving stakeholders to know what is expected, and what would be their individual handprint on the overall success of their manufacturing. The platform can also allow different parties to access relevant data in real time, without compromising security. Built-in data analytics tools can also help companies make sense of large amounts of information and identify trends and opportunities from their existing database. In addition, with configurable user and role-based views, companies can decide which information will be shared, with whom, and under what conditions, thus establishing clear guidelines for information sharing. They can also establish protocols for protecting sensitive information and monitoring its use. The solution enables creating a framework for sharing information, from which companies can reduce the perceived risks and build trust among stakeholders. Ultimately, companies can improve the overall performance of the whole supply chain.
For more inspiration, watch this video to see how Wärtsilä, a leading supplier for marine and energy markets, is surfing this wave of ecosystem thinking and collaboration mindset. They are pioneering and bringing their plan to life, starting with streamlining their information on the shopfloor to relevant stakeholders.
However, despite such advantages, so many companies are still struggling with information sharing. We have discussed with large and mid-sized OEMs as well as subcontractors and found out a few reasons behind the hesitation of sharing information. First, it is common that companies fear sharing information can be risky. Companies worry that their competitors will use the information against them, or that it will be misused in some way. Second, there’s a cultural barrier to overcome. Traditionally, companies have been very protective of their proprietary information, and breaking down those barriers can be difficult. Lastly, it is not uncommon that companies often lack resources and tools for streamlined sharing and collaboration with stakeholders, or information is scattered in different IT systems. This not only makes it difficult to collaborate throughout the supply chain, but also wastes the potential of the existing data that companies possess.
Overcoming these challenges is necessary, nevertheless. A single data solution that integrates and analyzes data from different IT systems, allowing for sharing information between stakeholders in production would be one solution. Leveraging open APIs and collaboration features, this solution would allow the involving stakeholders to know what is expected, and what would be their individual handprint on the overall success of their manufacturing. The platform can also allow different parties to access relevant data in real time, without compromising security. Built-in data analytics tools can also help companies make sense of large amounts of information and identify trends and opportunities from their existing database. In addition, with configurable user and role-based views, companies can decide which information will be shared, with whom, and under what conditions, thus establishing clear guidelines for information sharing. They can also establish protocols for protecting sensitive information and monitoring its use. The solution enables creating a framework for sharing information, from which companies can reduce the perceived risks and build trust among stakeholders. Ultimately, companies can improve the overall performance of the whole supply chain.
For more inspiration, watch this video to see how Wärtsilä, a leading supplier for marine and energy markets, is surfing this wave of ecosystem thinking and collaboration mindset. They are pioneering and bringing their plan to life, starting with streamlining their information on the shopfloor to relevant stakeholders.
However, despite such advantages, so many companies are still struggling with information sharing. We have discussed with large and mid-sized OEMs as well as subcontractors and found out a few reasons behind the hesitation of sharing information. First, it is common that companies fear sharing information can be risky. Companies worry that their competitors will use the information against them, or that it will be misused in some way. Second, there’s a cultural barrier to overcome. Traditionally, companies have been very protective of their proprietary information, and breaking down those barriers can be difficult. Lastly, it is not uncommon that companies often lack resources and tools for streamlined sharing and collaboration with stakeholders, or information is scattered in different IT systems. This not only makes it difficult to collaborate throughout the supply chain, but also wastes the potential of the existing data that companies possess.
Overcoming these challenges is necessary, nevertheless. A single data solution that integrates and analyzes data from different IT systems, allowing for sharing information between stakeholders in production would be one solution. Leveraging open APIs and collaboration features, this solution would allow the involving stakeholders to know what is expected, and what would be their individual handprint on the overall success of their manufacturing. The platform can also allow different parties to access relevant data in real time, without compromising security. Built-in data analytics tools can also help companies make sense of large amounts of information and identify trends and opportunities from their existing database. In addition, with configurable user and role-based views, companies can decide which information will be shared, with whom, and under what conditions, thus establishing clear guidelines for information sharing. They can also establish protocols for protecting sensitive information and monitoring its use. The solution enables creating a framework for sharing information, from which companies can reduce the perceived risks and build trust among stakeholders. Ultimately, companies can improve the overall performance of the whole supply chain.
For more inspiration, watch this video to see how Wärtsilä, a leading supplier for marine and energy markets, is surfing this wave of ecosystem thinking and collaboration mindset. They are pioneering and bringing their plan to life, starting with streamlining their information on the shopfloor to relevant stakeholders.
However, despite such advantages, so many companies are still struggling with information sharing. We have discussed with large and mid-sized OEMs as well as subcontractors and found out a few reasons behind the hesitation of sharing information. First, it is common that companies fear sharing information can be risky. Companies worry that their competitors will use the information against them, or that it will be misused in some way. Second, there’s a cultural barrier to overcome. Traditionally, companies have been very protective of their proprietary information, and breaking down those barriers can be difficult. Lastly, it is not uncommon that companies often lack resources and tools for streamlined sharing and collaboration with stakeholders, or information is scattered in different IT systems. This not only makes it difficult to collaborate throughout the supply chain, but also wastes the potential of the existing data that companies possess.
Overcoming these challenges is necessary, nevertheless. A single data solution that integrates and analyzes data from different IT systems, allowing for sharing information between stakeholders in production would be one solution. Leveraging open APIs and collaboration features, this solution would allow the involving stakeholders to know what is expected, and what would be their individual handprint on the overall success of their manufacturing. The platform can also allow different parties to access relevant data in real time, without compromising security. Built-in data analytics tools can also help companies make sense of large amounts of information and identify trends and opportunities from their existing database. In addition, with configurable user and role-based views, companies can decide which information will be shared, with whom, and under what conditions, thus establishing clear guidelines for information sharing. They can also establish protocols for protecting sensitive information and monitoring its use. The solution enables creating a framework for sharing information, from which companies can reduce the perceived risks and build trust among stakeholders. Ultimately, companies can improve the overall performance of the whole supply chain.
For more inspiration, watch this video to see how Wärtsilä, a leading supplier for marine and energy markets, is surfing this wave of ecosystem thinking and collaboration mindset. They are pioneering and bringing their plan to life, starting with streamlining their information on the shopfloor to relevant stakeholders.
