Lowering the Innovation Threshold: Unpacking Industry 4.0 Without Overcomplication
Has the journey from Industry 3.0 into Industry 4.0 been overcomplicated causing a delay in the revolution?
Yes! Probably……
Strive for Continuous Improvement versus Delayed Perfection!
Of course I should keep it simple, but how?
When a person begins to unpack the concept of Industry 4.0, they will likely turn to their favorite search engine looking for answers. The results will yield thousands of pages such as this one, links to companies toting their ability to help you understand and launch the journey. They may even find their way into several politically slanted blogs and websites on the hazards of the transformation, or the social elements that several believe need to be included in the transformation. When you embark on this journey, the amount of ideas, initiatives, ways of working, navigating the journey, and necessary stakeholder alignments can be overwhelming.
You risk turning into Mr. NoNo (Our Iceberg is Melting reference) and start shutting down your team’s ideas and recommendations.
Do not fall into that trap!
Moving your company, team, department from Industry 3.0 into Industry 4.0 technology does not have to be overwhelming. Strive for Continuous Improvement not Delayed Perfection and focus on making tomorrow better than yesterday. Take one small problem and improve it through automation. Yes, you absolutely should build a roadmap, action register, general guidelines on where you want to take the company. However, all of that administrative effort will take your time away from being innovative and will push the Innovation Threshold further out of reach.
Several recommended reading and learning resources are listed on a separate page of this blog. One of those articles is a paper written by Marc de Jong, Nathan Marston, and Erik Roth from McKinsey & Company. They postulate that there are eight essentials of innovation listed below. Their original research in 2015 consisted of interviews in over 300 companies. The 8 items below are an indicator if your company’s culture is one that allows for innovation and therefore can unlock the potential of Industry 4.0 transition.
McKinsey 8 tests to determine if your company really innovates:
1. Aspire - Do you regard innovation-led growth as critical, and do you have cascaded targets that reflect this?
2. Choose - Do you invest in a coherent, time- and risk-balanced portfolio of initiatives with sufficient resources to win?
3. Discover - Do you have differentiated business, market, and technology insights that translate into winning value proposition?
4. Evolve - Do you create new business models that provide defensible and scalable profit sources?
5. Accelerate - Do you beat the competition by developing and launching innovations quickly and effectively?
6. Scale - Do you launch innovations at the right scale in the relevant markets and segments?
7. Extend - Do you win by creating and capitalizing on external networks?
8. Mobilize - Are your people motivated, rewarded, and organized to innovate repeatedly?
To pass an Innovation Threshold and transition your company from Industry 3.0 (maybe even from Industry 2.0) into one ready for 4.0, I recommend that you revisit these 8 points and modify them slightly to fit an IIoT perspective. You do not need to launch a focus group or team to do this. Pull out a sheet of paper or grab your nearest white board and jot down a few answers to these questions.
A high level test of the McKinsey’s 8 Test of Innovation applied to Industry 4.0
Aspire – Does your company view Industry 4.0 as critical for future success, and do you have clear goals for digital transformation? For example, setting a target to reduce downtime by 30% using predictive maintenance powered by IIoT.
Choose – Are you investing in a balanced mix of Electrical systems, large and small automation projects, various forms of AI (ANI, AGI and ASI), and other IIoT initiatives? A company that strategically funds smart manufacturing upgrades and Targeted AI for Productivity improvements instead of rushing into every new tech trend is more likely to sustain long-term success.
Discover – DATA, DATA, DATA! Do your leaders have insights on where data-driven decisions can create a competitive edge? Are they hungry for new data sources, and ask for more information every day? For example, leveraging real-time data analytics to optimize production schedules and targeted maintenance activities.
Evolve – Can your Industry 4.0 initiatives be adapted, scaled and replicated? If you have multiple lines and locations, can you start with a pilot area and expand to others? Companies should move beyond one-time tech investments and create modular automation systems that allow continuous improvement. Expansion is key, one and done projects will cause momentum to stall.
Accelerate – Are you implementing Industry 4.0 solutions faster than your competitors? Are you taking calculated risk vs. only installing if another company has already? Speed to market is key! Companies using rapid prototyping and digital twins can iterate and improve more efficiently. Leverage partnerships with OEM’s and innovate together.
Scale – Are you launching smart factory innovations and standards across all relevant operations? Multiple locations? Are you setting up more than one Pilot area to try different configurations? A true Industry 4.0 leader will standardize IIoT infrastructure across multiple plants, ensuring seamless integration.
Extend – Are you leveraging external partnerships, networking opportunities, component and machine suppliers? Successful companies collaborate with IIoT providers, automation firms, and cloud computing experts to enhance their operations and get insights into innovative options that other teams are developing. Growing together with your partners will lower the Innovation Threshold and allow you to leverage initiatives from multiple companies and talent pools.
Mobilize – Is your workforce equipped and motivated to embrace Industry 4.0? Are you pushing your team to try and learn new things? Training and educating your employees in AI, automation, and data analytics ensures they are prepared to work with evolving technology.
If you have answered the questions above, you started on the journey!
Keep going!
There seem to be an overwhelming number of organizing and administrative task that you should complete to move your company forward into Industry 4.0, but Continuous Improvement is what we should be striving for. You should try to make tomorrow better than yesterday. Do not get bogged down with bureaucracy for bureaucracy sake. Just keep taking the next step, improve your systems, keep learning, and you will get further along your journey than someone that spends countless hours over-analyzing the situation trying to find the best first step.
Consider the picture below
You likely have a panel like this in one of your locations. The journey to Industry 4.0 transforms this panel into a more automated and easier to troubleshoot system. How can you make that happen tomorrow without the barriers of administrative tasks getting in your way?
We will continue to unpack the concepts of Industry 4.0 and how you can lower your Innovation Threshold so that the industry can move forward along this journey. One of your primary objectives on this journey should be to remove barriers for your teams to innovate on their own. Total control of the process will prevent you from being successful. As a leader, your focus should be to erect REMOVABLE guardrails on for your teamwork within.
