The Move from Old-School Manufacturing to Smart Manufacturing

The goal of smart manufacturing is to help the manufacturing industry become a driving force in the economy once again. That said, smart manufacturing is completely different from old-school manufacturing and has completely changed the manufacturing landscape.

In order to understand how smart manufacturing can enhance your existing operations and help you move into the modern world, this article looks at the differences between smart manufacturing and old-school manufacturing, as well as how manufacturing leaders can make the transition.

Capacity Vs. Capability 

Old-school manufacturing is about how much capacity a plant has and how to get more capacity. There are lots of metrics around capacity, like overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), which is often used to find ways to increase capacity without adding additional equipment or lines.

With smart manufacturing, it’s about what the plant can do. How can we grow our capabilities? Capabilities like the ability to make different products, change products quickly, respond quickly to requests from customers, easily adopt new processes and easily and quickly make new products.

To get started with this transition, start small and customize your products, adding data and services to them. This should enable you to solve problems and provide solutions for your customers instead of providing them only with products and services. 

Low-Cost Labor Vs. Knowledge Worker

The old-school manufacturing mindset focuses on low-cost labor as a commodity that you can buy in bulk whenever you need it—and get a bulk discount. The cheaper, the better, no matter the skill level.

Smart manufacturing, on the other hand, is about data, information and knowledge. A modern facility requires smart technology and smart people to run it. People who are hired for their ability to think, analyze, synthesize, create, learn and adapt in a modern world.

The challenge is finding and retaining the right people. As more employees are retiring and fewer people are pursuing careers in manufacturing, manufacturers must be proactive in capturing knowledge from retiring employees. They must train employees on new technologies and tools and ensure workers have the information they need when they need it.

A good first step in attracting and retaining highly skilled people is to make the commitment to a modern digital work environment and demonstrate you are capable of adopting smart tools and technologies.

Mass Production Vs. The Digital Factory 

Henry Ford made mass production into an art form and added the famous tagline that customers could have a car in any color they wanted if it was black. It’s about making large numbers of duplicate products. Mass production was good because it allowed Ford to get the cost of automobiles down to where everyone could afford one.

In today’s competitive climate, the business model has changed from mass production to customization. People want exactly what they want, and it’s often different from what everyone else wants. That’s what the digital factory is about—making unique and individual items even to the point of making just one and customizing it to exact specifications.

The digital factory provides a path forward from mass production to a more modern process. With smart technologies and devices, knowledge workers have access to real-time data about what happened and why. They can then use this data to make more informed decisions about facility operations and processes.

For a more data-driven approach, look at technologies, such as AI, machine learning, data analytics, digital twins/threads, the IIoT and more to provide you with the ability to access data and turn it into intelligence to be used and shared. 

Productivity Vs. Agility And Responsiveness 

Old-school manufacturing is also about productivity and how to increase it. Lots and lots of metrics revolve around productivity. Most continuous improvement programs are about improving productivity. In the end, the focus tends to be more on the number of products produced versus the labor hours required to produce the products. Obviously, the more products produced with fewer labor hours, the better.

As the focus shifts from increased productivity to making the right product to customer specifications, being agile and responsive is a key factor for operations. Agility is being able to move quickly to new products, new materials, and new processes to support responsiveness, which is about making sure you respond to the customer and provide them with exactly what they want and when they want it.

That’s what satisfies customers, and that process is what will help your company thrive in today’s world.

Capacity Fulfillment Vs. Customer Fulfillment

Finally, old-school manufacturing is about capacity fulfillment. You see this in the sales and marketing side of the business when everyone is just trying to sell out the capacity of the plant using discounts, promotions and other sales and marketing gimmicks.

Today, the focus is on customer fulfillment—meeting their needs, as opposed to simply selling them something. Leveraging smart technologies, you can use intelligent, real-time data to understand the customer and then change the plant, products, materials or process to meet their needs. You should be able to provide real value to the customer above and beyond what they get from other suppliers—and deliver that value to them how, when and where they want it.

It’s not easy, and it requires a huge change in the way you think about your manufacturing plants and in the way you run your manufacturing plants. In the end, the value that you provide the customer and the long-term relationship you create with the customer far outweighs any short-term challenges you have in manufacturing.

Conclusion

Smart manufacturing really is helping manufacturing once again become a driving force in the economy. It’s doing it through new ideas and new technologies. It’s doing it through smart people and smart technologies. It’s not old-school manufacturing; in fact, it’s a completely different outlook about what manufacturing is supposed to be.

Written by:  John Clemons, Consultant, for Forbes.