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What if I told you there was a way you could increase the value of your business by 20? A study done by McKinsey says it’s possible. Manufacturers could boost their overall value by an incredible 20% if they would adopt innovations and technological advances. This could another $530 billion to the industry in 2025,
However, getting these increases means changing the way we do things. While we fundamentally know that innovation in manufacturing can yield significant results, change can often be discomforting.
Resistance to Innovation in Manufacturing
There’s often a resistance to innovation in manufacturing that’s holding companies back. Why is that?
- Changes in tools used in manufacturing mean retooling
- Changes in the nature of the job mean re-training
- Changes in work relationships can cause uncertainty
- Fear of failure can cause resistance
- The emergence of new tasks can slow adoption
Even when it’s the right change, it can lead to anxiety.
Areas Where Lack of Innovation Are Costing You Money
If you’re not taking advantage of innovation in manufacturing, it’s going to be difficult to compete in the future. A lack of innovation is costing you money when it comes to quality control, smart manufacturing, and realizing gains from Industry 4.0 tools.
Quality Control Management
Without quality control, you waste time, money, and resources. Monitoring each step for the manufacturing journey from raw material to the final product helps you maintain quality control. This reduces scrap and rework. Standardization results in consistency and lowers customer complaints. A robust QC program lower production costs, helps you pass audits more quickly, and meet order specs.
Quality management, however, doesn’t work in a silo. It needs to be an enterprise-wide focus that includes every aspect of the organization with greater transparency. BluestreakTM end-to-end control leads to better QC, increasing productivity, and setting a path for continuous improvement.
Smart Manufacturing
The slow pace of digital adoption has hurt U.S. businesses. This resistance to innovation in manufacturing has put many companies at a significant disadvantage with overseas competitors. To combat cheap labor abroad, manufacturers have to get better at process and productivity.
Instead of adopting new software tools to improve business productivity, too many manufacturers try to adapt what they’ve used before even if the functionality you need is not available. If you find the software you’re using has too many workarounds, doesn’t have the functions you really need, or no longer fits your needs, it’s probably time to look for a new solution. If you’re using software that’s more at home in the accounting suite than on the shop floor, you’re not optimizing your productivity.
3D printing provides a host of benefits: rapid prototyping, lower costs for tooling costs and small production runs, greater flexibility, and reduced waste. Yet many manufacturers are losing money or losing business because they have not adopted this innovation in manufacturing.
Industry 4.0
Smart manufacturing holds a great deal of promise. The next phase of innovation in manufacturing, called Industry 4.0, is expected to create even bigger innovations leading to significant gains. Nearly half of all manufacturers are adopting Industry 4.0 standards to their processes, according to a study from the MPI Group.
Industry 4.0 will be able to capitalize on the ever-increasing volume of data being generated during the manufacturing process.
- Artificial Intelligence and machine learning will lead to process improvements
- Robotics can create more consistent throughput
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can automate workloads to reduce the amount of time spent on manual tasks
- Increased automation can create productivity gains
- Remote monitoring can collect data and track productivity and machine performance
Industry 4.0 is the name given to innovation in manufacturing that leads to better interoperability, information transparency, process insights, and automation. This provides manufacturers to redirect resources to focus on mission-critical work rather than manual tasks. Moving data to the cloud allows manufactures to put limited resources into the work on the shop floor rather than on managing the IT infrastructure.
BluestreakTM is perfectly positioned to take advantage of Industry 4.0 innovation in manufacturing with a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) and Quality Management System (QMS) that is designed exclusively for the service-based manufacturing environment. The primary focus is on the manufacturing process instead of inventory management.
Create Innovation
Innovation in manufacturing starts with the right software for your needs. Often the software is chosen by the business office and “adapted” to the shop floor, rather than choosing an ERP system or MES/QMS system that can create innovation.
In business, so much of what we do is conditioned on ROI. We ask whether doing this will increase our profitability. We often forget to examine external costs, such as loss of business because we fail to innovate. As labor costs continue to rise, and good workers are harder to find, innovation in manufacturing will be crucial to remain competitive. Failing to innovate is burning profits.