The manufacturing industry is maturing fast as around 60% of companies have started to adopt digital transformation solutions. Remaining companies have started to focus on digital solutions. 

Before getting started with how the manufacturing industry is steering success with digital innovations, giving a basic understanding to its processes is recommended. The manufacturing processes differ between companies. 

Let’s consider discrete manufacturing companies to understand the role of automation in overall manufacturing productivity and RoI transformation.

Also, let’s discuss how digital transformation services and solutions are transforming manufacturing companies below. 

Managing inventory saves time & money

Managing inventory can always be tiresome and often misplaced or missed raw material lead to an increase in the expenditure for the company. Having an inventory management system in place will help identify the materials in stock/out-of-stock and avoid spending on goods already in stock. This will save a lot of money which can be spent constructively. 

• Improves the accuracy of inventory orders 
• Save money
• Save time
• Traceability
• Integration with other departments
• Customer satisfaction
• Production rates
• Accurate Planning
• Decreased Stock-Outs
• Increased inventory turnover

Shop floor visibility improves OEE & productivity

The shop floor is the heart of the manufacturing company and automating the floor operations will help the company produce products effectively and meet its manufacturing goals. Having a shop floor automation solution will help the operators, plant supervisors and managers with access to real-time production data to improve productivity on the floor. 

 Implementing IoT devices and sensors on the machines and integrate real-time data with a dashboard to analyze the shop floor performance with 100% accuracy. 

• Real-time data sharing
• Cost reduction
• Better resource planning
• Improved transparency & visibility
• Lower production costs
• Error-free data
• Sustainable process improvement
• Increased quality and lower scrap and waste

Monitoring machine health reduces maintenance costs

Monitoring machine health is all-important on a shop floor as it decides the productivity rate and its efficiency. Tracking and identifying the machine’s health with IoT and sensors will help the plant supervisors to keep a tab on the performances when it’s operating at its peak or general. 

Garnering this data will help in the process of identifying foreseeing efficiency and performance or downtime of machines. This will help prevent machine failures at critical times of production and contributes to a better productivity rate. 

Having a predictive maintenance system will help analyze machine efficiency at every point of production. 

• Reduction in maintenance costs
• Reduction in machine failures
• Reduced downtime for repairs
• Increased service life of machines
• Increased production
• Improved operator safety

In-store asset tracking reduces asset expense

Once the finished goods reach the warehouse, tracking the goods becomes a challenge. The goods are stocked using the QR code or barcode labels. Next will be tracking the goods from the inventory for distribution. 

Once again, finding a single product out of many available can be hard for any staff and may consume a lot of time. Having an in-store asset tracking solution will help the staff locate any product inside a warehouse without any difficulty. 

• Perform audit effectively
• Better asset tracking
• Reduce labor cost
• Saves time
• Reduces repeated asset spending
• Produce reports on current and future asset values instantly
• Assign equipment and inventory to specific employees or teams

Distribution – Field sales automation solution

Next comes the distribution part. The field sales team will be out for distribution and tracking their operations on a day-to-day basis will be challenging. 

The sales data plays a critical role in the growth of the company and delays in cycles can lead to potential loss to the company. Having a field force management app will help distributors to identify, track field sales teams and their operations to plan for effective sales cycles. 

• Monitor the fieldwork
• Know market Trends
• No information lost between reps and owner
• Real-time – On the go functionality
• More Sales through analytics
• Greater independence for reps
• Saves time
• No missed opportunities

Top discrete manufacturing companies have already started to implement these solutions to improve productivity and efficiency. Are you ready for the transformation?