“Deploying digital tools on the shop floor can provide real-time insights, empowering personnel to make informed decisions that lead to smoother, more efficient plant operations.” Kartik Raman, Vice President and Global Head of Industry 4.0 and Digital Supply Chain at ITC Infotech
What are the current market trends in Digital Manufacturing?
In today’s Digital Manufacturing landscape, we’re seeing two key trends shaping how organizations leverage technology to enhance their business KPIs. The first focuses on deploying digital tools on the shop floor. These solutions provide real-time insights, empowering personnel to make informed decisions that lead to smoother, more efficient plant operations. Initially rolled out in select plants, these tools are now expanding across multiple locations, demonstrating their value and scaled ROI.
The second trend is gaining significant traction: “Integrated Manufacturing Operations on Cloud”. This approach provides real-time insights to enterprise-level roles, such as VPs of Manufacturing and regional directors. Our Manufacturing Data and Analytics Platform offering aggregates data from various plants, enabling benchmarking of KPIs, asset-focused analytics, and self-service reporting that can be accessed anytime, anywhere. This democratization of data and best practices is transformative, allowing teams to make better decisions together and cross leverage best practices.
How does ITC Infotech approach Cloud-enabled Manufacturing Operations? What differentiates it?
At ITC Infotech, we pride ourselves on our rich ITC heritage, which gives us deep manufacturing expertise. This learnings empowers us to support our clients in navigating the complexities of their Industry 4.0 journey, making the process smoother and more manageable. Our persona-centric approach encourages higher adoption rates, supported by a library of pre-built use cases that accelerate solution development and deployment. Key offerings like SPECTRUM for Smart Manufacturing, INSIGHT for Cognitive Manufacturing, and Connected Operations for enabling Digital Twins are just a few examples of how we’re paving the way for success. We’re also excited to integrate Generative AI into these solutions, keeping us at the forefront of innovation.
What role does OT Cybersecurity play in IT-OT integration for Cloud-enabled manufacturing?
OT cybersecurity is essential, especially since shop-floor operations are at the heart of any manufacturing business. A security breach can have serious consequences on production. As we connect Operational Technology (OT) network with IT network for enhanced visibility, strengthening the security of the OT layer becomes crucial. This is particularly challenging in brownfield environments that rely on legacy equipment, making our commitment to robust security solutions even more vital.
How do the convergence of Data, AI/Gen AI, and Digital Twin technologies enhance efficiency and productivity?
Our Integrated Digital Manufacturing approach combines connectivity, data, analytics, and Digital Twin capabilities to deliver actionable insights. This empowers organizations to optimize their plant operations and improve worker productivity. For example, we’ve enabled use cases like semi-finished products tracking across plants and correlating manufacturing data with corporate data to enhance demand forecasting and supply chain visibility. For a CPG Manufacturer, we created a Process Digital Twin of production line that line that predicts workstation bottleneck and enables proactive intervention for uninterrupted production flow. It’s about making data work for manufacturing personas, ensuring they have the insights they need at their fingertips.
What challenges do manufacturing organizations encounter when implementing and scaling Cloud-enabled Operations?
Manufacturing organizations often face unique challenges due to their diverse facilities and complex OT landscapes. Key hurdles include:
Technology: Connectivity to shop-floor system especially in a brown field environment with legacy OT systems requires custom connectivity driver development or upgrade to latest controllers. We recommend solving for connectivity and integration challenges using two separate integration bus; (1) At shop floor level that connects all the shop floor system and aggregates the data at plant level, and (2) At enterprise level for integration with all the enterprise systems like supply chain planning, ERP, and others.
Process: Establishing clear business case for scaling solutions beyond initial Proof of Value (PoV) initiatives is critical. Identifying business priorities and allowing flexibility in use case implementation per plant need can make all the difference.
Culture: Strong sponsorship from executive leadership is vital for prioritizing initiatives. Additionally, setting up an Organization Change Management (OCM) office can greatly support solution adoption across the organization.
How is ITC Infotech partnering with clients to enhance their Cloud-enabled Manufacturing journey?
At ITC Infotech, we’re dedicated to partnering with clients to deploy tailored solutions that improve their KPIs of production, quality, maintenance, and sustainability. For instance, we recently helped an Aluminium foil manufacturer facing challenges with quality consistency due to variations in material thickness. By implementing a Digital Twin using AnyLogic’s simulation modelling tool, we modeled and optimized their production processes. This initiative allowed the Quality Supervisor and Production Manager to maintain product quality more reliably, creating a positive impact on their operations.
For a leading home appliances manufacturer, we have developed a Manufacturing Data and Analytics platform on cloud providing real-time insights into production efficiency, operator performance and utility efficiency. Our focus is on delivering solutions that not only meet technical requirements but also empower teams to thrive.
