ISG Provider Lens™ Manufacturing Industry Services - U.S. 2020 - OT Security Solutions
Manufacturing Industry Services 2020
In the U.S., as manufacturing is becoming more efficient with smart manufacturing concepts, manufacturers are exploring ways of connecting to consumers to reduce the complexities of dealing with intermediaries. This necessitates connected products, which will enable manufacturers to harness the power of those products in the hands of end consumers. Also, considering the proliferation of data, connections to products would require seamless security, and manufacturers have started investing in operational technology (OT) security. Lastly, the core of the existing legacy systems should be energized with digital technologies.
With investments starting to gain pace, the adoption of automation and other critical components of smart manufacturing is expected to increase. Also, during the COVID-19 pandemic, field services are being upended and social distancing norms are being implemented. This, in turn, results in a limited number of technicians being on the shop floor at any given time, which leads to manufacturers focusing on remote monitoring, connected maintenance and preventive maintenance. As a result, the digital backbones of companies are becoming stronger, and this trend is expected to accelerate in the near future.
ISG witnesses three major impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the manufacturing sector:
Receptiveness to B2B2C: Enterprises are more receptive to digital services, in addition to traditional manufacturing services, often called business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) for smart manufacturing. Also, the manufacturers are willing to accept bold, radical ideas associated with cost reduction. One of the main areas of focus is captive buyout, i.e., buying out assets or data centers even in areas of long-tail vendor consolidation for supply chain disruption, which is quite prominent in the automotive and aerospace verticals. Capital expenditure challenges have led to radical thought processes around complete IT-as-a-service (IaaS). For example, enterprise resource planning (ERP) as a service has been gaining traction in the manufacturing sector, wherein the enterprises have been looking for partners that can build end-to-end ERP for a client and then offer it back to them as a service.
Paperless factory realization: Digital shop floor manufacturing systems cover engineering, designing and shop floor equipment planning, as well as elements of operation and maintenance. The concept of a paperless factory extends from peripheral IT system to connections with the ERP to oversee holistic business processes. In the current situation, the manufacturers have been seeking additional value from their investment in existing lines. However, when commissioning a new line or integrating any new element in the production cycle, the organizations are opting for a high degree of automation. With fewer people on the shop floor, IT/OT integration should be properly designed and leveraged to ensure minimal impact on production. Also, it has become critical to establish a digital thread that spans all the stages from planning and engineering, through mechanical computer-aided design (CAD) and electrical CAD, to developing a new product lifecycle management (PLM). The digital thread allows for a paperless factory by making all these stages paperless, including the coverage of shop floor manufacturing and finally getting the product out in the market. The concept provides a sneak peek into the future of manufacturing, i.e., a shop floor with zero paper and digital systems leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) data to monitor different manufacturing processing systems and report accordingly. In case of an incident or a congestion on the shop floor, the data is reported into a central repository and analyzed by the manufacturer.
Achieving the easiest goals first to muster digital dexterity: Large-scale manufacturing facilities operating 24/7 are prone to materials shortages or outages, which can affect the production line, resulting in huge monetary losses up to US$1 million. Such issues take an average of 20-30 minutes to resolve. However, with current restrictions brought in by the COVID-19 pandemic, enterprises indicate that chronic issues such as machine downtime often go unnoticed due to the high number of supply chain issues, which have a milder but a more immediate impact. Although most large-scale manufacturers in the U.S. already have solutions in place to react to these issues to some extent, the technologies have only been able to reduce the monetary impact. There is still no solution available to mitigate this completely.
Overall, given the agility required in executing manufacturing functions, the projects are morphing into joint team exercises, bringing together onshore and offshore teams with the captive business of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and service providers, moving toward a single project board. Customers see this as an important aspect of their value chain.
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