Insightssuccess the 10 most valuable manufacturing solution provider companies julu 2017

www.insightssuccess.com JULY 2017

The way of business solutions THE

MOST VALUABLE

MANUFACTURING Solution Provider Companies

Manufacturing Thing Industrial Internet of Things: The Magic Wand That Can Change the Future Economy

Editor’s Opinion Why Do You Need to Advance your Discrete Manufacturing Solutions?

Editorial

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he fluctuating economy of manufacturing and distribution, along with shifts in consumer demand and the advent of “smart” products are pushing solution providers in pursuit of genuinely unique techniques for forming and capturing value. A prime part of the story is the drop in technology outlays. The rise of low-priced connected devices, coupled with the accessibility and affordability of mass computing power, has been the largest driver of Smart Manufacturing.

As technology endures to progress exponentially, commercialization and learning are worn away. Innovative market players with access to novel tools can operate at much-reduced scale, qualifying them to generate offerings. Though large-scale production will continuously control some segments of the value chain, cutting-edge manufacturing replicas—strewn small-scale local manufacturing, flippantly coupled manufacturing ecosystems and supple manufacturing—are increasing to yield benefit of these new opportunities.

Resourceful Seeds of Smart Solution Providers Transforming the Manufacturing Future

Also, Industry 4.0 is the latest buzzword. It’s the fourth industrial revolution and represents the future where intelligent machines are self-aware and automation challenges can be solved by the machinery itself. An effusively integrated i4.0 environment benefits manufacturers to eliminate significant friction from the increasingly intricate supply chains.

It could reveal enhanced visibility across the network and down into lower-tier providers to recover lessen risk and increase flexibility.

Pioneering the future of manufacturing, a solution provider supports industrial enterprises across the globe to reach a higher level of advanced manufacturing and become more productive, efficient, and competitive.

Industry creates a lasting value and is an important motor for manufacturing sector growth. We are observing the need to make industrial production even more professional – to increase productivity, efficiency (resource efficiency and production efficiency) and international competitiveness.

There is a widely observed emergence of a comprehensive portfolio of solution in the product, system, and application-oriented services throughout the entire lifecycle of machines and plants – from planning and design to operation and all the way to modernization industries. The offered integrated and intelligent services by solution providers perfectly tuned in with the products and considered the entire production process in an integrated manner.

Solution providers are making the manufacturing activities easier by connecting the real and the virtual worlds of production with industrial integration, innovative industry software and solutions for resource efficiency. To surge productivity, they look at the entire value chain and ensures the seamless integration of information, communications and automation technologies in all operating processes. These benefits to the customers heighten all development steps in the entire product development and production process, making them more productive, efficient, and flexible.

The

10 Most Valuable

Manufacturing

solution provider Companies

Manufacturing Solution Providers: The Succeeding Epoch of Global Escalation and Innovation

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he manufacturing sector is flowing into a transformative period, characterized by continued but modest growth, a transformed focus on product and process innovation, and extraordinary collaboration across the value chain.

Further, while the impulsiveness of global economic events produces new challenges on a daily basis, manufacturers have developed outlines and tools to advance clearness and lessen risk across the supply chain as well as the global enterprise.

Currently, manufacturing solution providers are continuing to advance a competitive cost configurations as they align their business models with changing market dynamics. They are ramping up their innovation energies to progress their offerings in anticipation of extra orders and to create themselves even leaner. Their business models are fluctuating as a result, with value-added services fetching a more significant source of revenue and nearshoring yielding numerous profits.

In this issue of “The 10 Most Valuable Manufacturing Solution Provider Companies,” we have shortlisted some of the prominent organizations, which have achieved trademark by providing top-notch manufacturing solutions and are well prepared for advancing the manufacturing sector’s future. These organizations are assisting the different industries in transforming their way of business with an exceptional strategy execution and customer satisfaction as the premier priority.

Our magazine’s journey begins with ChainSequence, a business management consulting group, which focuses on the improvement of global supply chains and Sales and operational planning, followed by Infionic, who bonds all the essential functions of an organization and helps seamless information flow across manufacturing, operations, sales, human resources, legal, etc. and most importantly, to the executive management of the firm, Northwest Analytics (NWA), an industry leader in delivering Industry 4.0 analytics platforms and manufacturing intelligence software solutions to effectively manage and improve plant processes in manufacturing enterprises and across their supply chains, Sightline for providing remarkably easy-to-use business intelligence and advanced analytics solutions that leverage time series data, predictive analysis, visualization, advanced alerting capability and more in real time to provide our customers with a higher level of insight than any other software company can.

We have included , “Why Do You Need to Advance your Discrete Manufacturing Solutions?,” “Industrial Internet of Things: The Magic Wand That Can Change the Future Economy,” “Manufacturing: The Upcoming Era of Global Growth and Innovation,” “Environmental Responsibilities for Business,” “Initiatives to Drive Innovation and Business Growth, ” scripted by our in-house editors in the wonderful pages of this magazine.

We have also covered CXO’s on, “In an Ever Faster Changing World Extreme Configurability is the Answer,” by Jakob Kesje, Founders of IVISYS and “Ride on any Management Trend with this Recipe in 2017,” by Dr. Sachin Bhide, Founder & Strategy Consultant, Eha Management Consultancy.

So, do flip the pages of our magazine to uncover the prominent inspirations of these Manufacturing Solution Companies.

Article Manufacturing thing

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Industrial Internet of Things: The Magic Wand That Can Change the Future Economy

CONTENTS 18

Trends To Watch

Editor’s Pick

26

Environmental Responsibilities for Business

Editor’s Opinion

20

CXO Standpoint

38

Manufacturing: The Upcoming Era of Global Growth and Innovation In an Ever Faster Changing World Extreme Con igurability is the Answer

30

Why Do You Need to Advance your Discrete Manufacturing Solutions?

Centre of Interest

34

Initiatives to Drive Innovation and Business Growth

Ride on any Management Trend with this recipe in 2017

ChainSequence:

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Global Supply Chain Planning and S&OP Consultants

In ionic: Achieve Perfection at Every Step with Intelligence

16

Northwest Analytics: Accelerating Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence

24

Sightline Systems: Leveraging Business Intelligence

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Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Senior Editor Ariana Lawrence Managing Editor Sachin Bhandare Co-Editors David Smith Sagar Bhattacharjee Poonam Yadav Contributors Sourav, Rajarshi, Piyush, Abhinav, Kaustav Visualiser David King Art & Design Director Amol Kamble Co-designer Alex Noel Picture Editor Vinod Alhat Art Editor Shweta Shinde Business Development Manager Mike Thomas Nick Adams Marketing Manager Chris Clarke Business Development Executives Karen Holland Sophie Smith Research Analyst Jennifer Circulation Manager Robert Database Management Steve Technology Consultant Vishal More sales@insightssuccess.com

JULY, 2017 Corporate Ofď€ ces: Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription: Visit www.insightssuccess.com 7

Insights Success Media and Technology Pvt. Ltd. Ofď€ ce No. 513, 5th Floor, Rainbow Plaza, Shivar Chowk, Pimple Saudagar, Pune, Maharashtra 411017 Phone - India: 020-69400110, 111, 112 Email: meera@insightssuccess.in For Subscription: Visit www.insightssuccess.in ,

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The

10 Most Valuable

Manufacturing

solution provider Companies

Company Name Allnex Industries www.allnex.com

Celestica www.celestica.com

Management Emery Severin CEO James Williams General Counsel & Company Secretary

Brief Allnex is a leading supplier of specialty chemicals, offering a broad range of resins, additives and crosslinkers for use on wood, metal, plastic and other surfaces.

Rob Mionis President and CEO, Celestica is dedicated to delivering end-to-end product lifecycle Rodney Bergman solutions to drive our customers’ success SVP Global Business Services

ChainSequence www.chainsequence.com

Bill Mrzlak President & CEO

ChainSequence is a metaphor for facilitating supply chains to function, at peak performance level, toward a more logical path that both syncs with and advances sales and operations planning (S&OP) objectives.

Factora Solutions www.factorasolutions.com

Mark T. Mondello CEO

Factora plan, design and implement Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) and Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) solutions.

Infionic www.infionic.com

Subramanyam SP Founder & CEO

Infionic is an enterprise information company delivering enterprise information solutions.

JABIL www.jabil.com

Mark Mondello CEO Walter Garvin VP Global Lean Six Sigma

Jabil is a trusted innovation, engineering manufacturing & supply chain partner.

Northwest Analytics www.nwasoft.com

Bob Ward CEO Jim Petrusich VP, Sales

Northwest Analytics (NWA) is an industry leader in delivering Industry 4.0 analytics platforms and manufacturing intelligence software solutions to effectively manage and improve plant processes in manufacturing enterprises and across their supply chains.

PA Consulting Group www.paconsulting.com

Alan Middleton CEO

PA Consulting Group are experts in consulting, technology and innovation, working with businesses and governments worldwide.

Sightline Systems www.sightlinesystems.com

Brandon Witte President & CEO

Sightline Systems is focused on collecting and analyzing the data made available during the manufacturing process and applying predictive analytics to significantly advance the manufacturing process beyond what it is today.

TCS www.tcs.com

Anand Pradhan Head of the Aerospace & Defence segment

TCS combines tech expertise and business intelligence to catalyze change and deliver results.

Industrial Internet of Things:

Manufacturing thing

The Magic Wand That Can Change The Future Economy

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he Industrial Internet of Things is transforming the way the industry works. Just like IoT, the IIoT covers a wide variety of cases, apps, and industries.

Initially, the primal focus of IIOT was on the optimization of operational productivity and automation. Since then, IIoT has helped early adopters by identifying the cut-throat advantages and new business models which have led towards cost-effectiveness, improved customer support system, and better revenue numbers. It combines different modern technologies such as big data, machine to machine communication, machine learning and automation with the existing technologies within the industry.

IIoT, also known as the Industrial Internet, is an amalgamation of the information and operational department of the industry. Thereby, boosting the rate of productivity, curbing down the current complex processes and radically improving the visibility of the industry. To sum it up, Industrial Internet is a revamped manufacturing strategy that has helped an industry to improve its security,

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productivity, and quality. It is predicted that the Industrial Internet could add a staggering amount of $14.2 trillion to the global domestic product by the year 2030.

IIOT offers a varied range of advantages that one can get when opting for it. Some of them are – Predictive Maintenance Efficacy Currently, most companies within the industrial sector have a hands-on approach towards the failure of equipment. In case of any falter or breakage, they go out to fix the issue themselves but with the implementation of sensors in the manufacturing equipment and combining them with software, grants companies the opportunity to predict any emerging failures in the equipment. This provides an unmatched advantage to the IIOT adopting companies as they would be able to identify and fix any issues at an early phase before it translates into a bigger one. With a predictive maintenance system, operators have the scope of keeping a record of the equipment's performances and its conditions, accumulating and analyzing those data, and usage of those information to efficiently manage the application.

Real-Time Monitoring of Data Besides the use of predictive maintenance, companies are also using sensors to track or monitor real-time data. With the connected automation equipment in place, it provides operational managers with the ability to gain insights about the performance of those devices, and extract relevant data for analytical purposes. Previously, it was extremely difficult or not worth the effort for the companies to compute this meaningful information. However, with the help of modern technology, grabbing hold of these data is not as difficult as it was before.

Higher Operational Efficiency By accessing the data through sensors and automated equipment, it enables operators to use predictive maintenance methods with remote management that inversely improves the operational efficiency. With the help of real-time performance analytics, operational managers can strategically schedule the maintenance of the systems instead of doing continual and regular maintenance. An IIoT-enabled application promptly reduces the overhead cost of a company incurred in system maintenance operations.

that may lead to a system failure in the future. The time taken for a message to travel across a network of workers is a critical area that should be considered upon implementing IIoT. Communication between devices located hundreds of miles apart is another challenge for the global companies adopting IIoT. Additionally, to meet the growing demands and requirements of the future industries, IIoT should expand and revamp within the coming decades.

The Future Ahead for the Industrial IoT The estimated number of $14.2 trillion that it could add to the global economy by the year 2030 can be increased even higher, if companies take a bolder approach of making higher investments in innovation and technology than what they are doing now.

Although the progressive companies of today are already among the many to adopt the Industrial Internet of Things, most businesses are not yet equipped to take the plunge and pull the trigger. A survey conducted by the Accenture group found out that out of 1400 imminent business leaders only one-third of them understand the positive implications of IIoT. Businesses that have applied for the Industrial IoT into their scheme of things have observed powerful results with a considerable reduction in the operational overhead, improved worker safety and higher revenue outcome. This transformation in business will have noticeable implications upon the workforce with IIoT's digitalization of the job market that has until now resisted automation. In future, IIoT will lead us towards more job opportunities, provide much more engaging work, prevention from cyber threats and create a spontaneous and responsive workplace environment.

There have been countless technological advancements in the recent past that has been billed as the “Next Big Thing” in the tech arena. But only a few within those evolving technologies have the potential to break through the business landscape, and thankfully Industrial IoT is one among them.

Challenges Ahead for the Industrial IoT The Industrial Internet of Things has been designed to manage the vital machinery or equipment of the company

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The

10 Most Valuable

Manufacturing

solution provider Companies

ChainSequence: Global Supply Chain Planning and S&OP Consultants

Bill Mrzlak President & CEO ChainSequence

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oday, Sales and Operation Planning (S&OP) is considered the tip of the iceberg of supply chain management, with many complex processes supporting it under the surface.

Many companies are just starting out with the basics of S&OP, using principles developed many years ago.

However, S&OP leaders like Chainsequence® are propelling these traditional S&OP processes to advanced levels. ChainSequence is a metaphor for facilitating supply chains to function, at peak performance level, toward a more logical path that both syncs with and advances sales and operations planning (S&OP) objectives.

Bill Mrzlak, President & CEO of ChainSequence is the driving force at ChainSequence, possessing an encyclopedic knowledge-base and the impressive global project experience to back it up. For 25 years, he and his colleagues have provided supply chain and S&OP services to leading corporate entities within many industry sectors around the world.

Applying his wide range of expertise in cultivating the integral relationship between supply chains and S&OP, he continues to help the ChainSequence team thrive and succeed. Bill’s background also includes working closely with Fortune 100 clients in the high-tech industry, serving as the change agent in the deployment of global supply chain planning solutions.

ChainSequence’s service offerings take an enterprise-wide approach, helping clients to 1) diagnose issues, and 2) re-engineer weakened supply chain business processes that are obstructing profitable momentum.

Exceptional Service Model and Unique Business Approach The primary factor that sets ChainSequence apart is their knowledge-share philosophy, imparting game-changing guidance during engagements to educate clients on the hows and whys of best-practice supply chain planning.

Mentoring teams on how to jumpstart their (S&OP) initiatives, with examples and what-if scenarios that won’t deplete resources or operating budgets, ChainSequence’s three-cycle, S&OP delivery approach helps clients become self-sufficient and increase market share quickly.

Using its proprietary, education-based model, ChainSequence builds proficiencies within client environments, guiding teams in both eliminating obstacles and deploying significantly nimbler business processes. The result? A far more healthier, profitable relationship between client supply chains and their strategic S&OP goals.

Another advantage is ChainSequence’s emphasis on business process enhancement, organizational development, and process ownership. Because ChainSequence’s services have built-in milestones with targeted metrics to ensure progressive change management and positive ROI gains, Mrzlak stated, “We coach and guide our clients in

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‘‘

‘‘

We coach and guide our clients in developing and deploying the most effective business processes that allow for continuous improvement over time

developing and deploying the most effective business processes that allow for continuous improvement over time.”

Within client organizations, ChainSequence’s ability to clarify big-picture concepts to gain support at the executive level is just as effective as the firm’s work in the trenches among client team members. ChainSequence’s consulting sessions are designed to expand outdated, one-dimensional views of processes within organizations by focusing on best-practice rules instead.

Developing Solutions to Reach Measurable Goals Even with software advances in data analytics, moving supply chain and S&OP business processes forward into a scalable future still requires considerable time and effort.

Many individuals in senior positions are persuaded by software vendors that their issues can be simply addressed by a magic-bullet software solution. ChainSequence stresses that the success of any definitive system execution is only as good as the data going into it, and the processes wrapped around it. Mrzlak points out that a well-built process, rather than a specific technology, is the key to success.

The impartiality and integrity of ChainSequence’s work requires independence from specific solutions vendors.

“Our autonomy is a big factor in being able to work freely with customers. We recommend the software products that are right for them,” says Mrzlak. However, he noted, choosing the right solution is only half the battle. Once

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a solution has been determined, the implementation requires organizing it appropriately/hierarchically to support the essentials of the customer’s business, while eliminating the need for costly customization. Mrzlak added, “Is there any solution out there that can support ALL of the unique requirements for any given customer? The answer is no.

But, through faster and better planning, an enterprise can maximize its speed and decision support power, allowing it to be more responsive to its customers.”

Technological Advancements towards Future Growth A top-notch supply chain planning process should periodically take a critical, impartial look at several key indicators to regulate pain points within Demand Management, Supply Management, Demand/Supply Alignment and Order Management.

Each area comprises several distinct sub-elements—like cogs in a complex machine—which must function in alignment with one another to be cost-effective and timeefficient.

Based on current client demand within this arena, ChainSequence’s two-tiered focus-evolving and refining end-to-end supply chain planning processes that line up with S&OP objectives-is even more relevant for the future of manufacturing.

ChainSequence continues its work within the international marketplace, assimilating emerging technology advancements into its business process models to improve efficiencies and best support changing needs. “We will also continue to expand our presence in the consumer products, retail, and service-oriented industry sectors, both within the U.S. and overseas,” concludes Mrzlak. www.chainsequence.com

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The

10 Most Valuable

Manufacturing

solution provider Companies

Inonic: Achieve Perfection at Every Step with Intelligence

Subramanyam SP Founder & CEO Inonic

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anufacturing industries are swiftly embracing automation in all aspects of the business. While machine automation has been encompassed for a while, the operation data automation/digitization is rapidly gaining interest. Use of mobile and tablets to capture manufacturing operations data is transmuting the way companies manage data and do business. All of this will free up precious time of employees thereby assisting them to focus on more value-added activities.

Infionic is an enterprise information company delivering enterprise information solutions. Infionic’s flagship product, Infionic One is an end-to-end enterprise-wide ERP platform that transforms a business into a technology and data driven organization promoting and enabling decision-making process driven by facts and figures.

Infionic One empowers manufacturing firms with a comprehensive technology solution that not only boosts the core manufacturing processes but also impeccably integrates all ancillary processes. Right from crafting a product profile, to managing the shop floor data, to total quality management, the platform’s easy to use screens ensure the data generated during various steps within the manufacturing process is captured accurately and in

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real-time. Infionic One delivers a transparent and connected view of shop floor, inventory, procurement, and logistics—making it easy to identify any bottlenecks and increase productivity within the organization.

Infionic force customers to think beyond core Manufacturing – All manufacturing operations are tied to top-line or bottom-line and that needs to be understood to realize the true value of manufacturing tools.

A Leader who believes in Perfection Subramanyam SP (Subb) is the Founder & CEO of Infionic. Subbu has immense experience in delivering turnkey technology solutions to the Manufacturing Industry and has extensively worked with both process and discrete manufacturing companies. Given his extensive manufacturing experience, he fully understands the business and technology nuances of this industry as well as some of its challenges. In an effort to cater to an unmet market need of providing transparent and readily accessible information, about 8 years ago, Subbu initiated Infionic. In a reflection of his thought leadership, Infionic has been ranked as a leader for its product competencies by several global organizations.

Subbu holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology, Pilani (India) and has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (India).

Distinct Platforms and Business Boosting Services The success of a product is only when it is adopted by all the users. Right from selling to adoption, Infionic walks the

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‘‘

‘‘

We deliver the perfect business control

by Connecting Information Ions

talk with its customers helping them along the way.

Adoption comes from educating customers on the existing gaps and also by showcasing how the benefits could make business simpler and enable faster decision-making. Their commitment to OFU (Optimized, Flexible and Usable) paradigm ensured that they maintained a customer-first emphasis to their product development efforts which resulted in a robust user-friendly enterprise suite. Infionic is constantly striving towards their core belief and simplifying it without compromising the functionality or security.

Infionic One is an integrated solution that brings in a cost conscious approach to manufacturing which results in higher profitability and greater control and checks. The platform’s key benefits include improving margins based on better pricing due to good understanding of costs, reducing stock-outs due to increased coordination in supply chain and increased employee productivity and employee satisfaction.

Infionic One’s data-driven methodology to keep track of manufacturing overheads is incorporated into the costing model to give an accurate product costing. Infionic one can keep track of all 3 Ms – Man, Machine & Material – in an integrated fashion there by covering all the operations aspects of an organization. This is done in a cost effective manner to improve the adaptability & usability of the solution.

Escalating the future horizons For Infionic, the future is all about integrating all aspects of the operations seamlessly. And they are doing it by increasing digitization and automation resulting in enhanced decision making capabilities. With the business intelligence tools becoming cheaper & cheaper, their focus will be more on the base data capture.

A unique approach towards managing of the business process guides the clients in creating a product outline, managing the shop floor data, total quality management, and easy to use screens which certify the data generated during the various steps of the business process and assists in data capturing accurately and in real-time. Infionic’s improved data-driven approach possesses the track of manufacturing overheads which is incorporated into their costing model to give an exact product costing.

Infionic team continuously indulges in R&D to enhance more features to the already successful Infionic One platform to provide organizations with seamless information flow across manufacturing, operations, sales, human resources, legal and executive management of the firm. They are converting their platform into SaaS software model for small-scale firms. Alongside they are also planning to introduce a flavor of localization in the product so that the clients can shape tools in their local language.

Infionic is located in New York, US and Hyderabad, India.

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In an Ever Faster Changing World Extreme Configurability is the Answer

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he “scalable software business” is enabling the rapid growth of many of the current day disrupting companies, such as Uber and Airbnb. This should be a source of inspiration also for those of us working with software in combination with hardware. And why? Because “scalable” can also be spelled “flexible” or “adaptable” and that is something the manufacturing industry is looking for.

Here is a brief introduction to, how we try to apply this kind of mindset at IVISYS in our development of full vision system solutions. But first a bit of background and insights on the main challenges of our industry, the automated quality control industry: Since the 1980s the use of vision systems--camera-based automated quality control--has spread to many industries. Many of these systems rely on so-called vision sensors (and smart cams) —small integrated units with optics, an output signal, a data processor and a software-pack. Most frequently, they are single-purpose units, programmed for performing only one type of inspection.

Is the tide turning against such single-purpose solutions? At IVISYS, we believe so.

Many of these are legacy-systems hailing from the vision industry’s early years. Often, they have limited or no use today, as they have shown to be too inflexible for the changing demands of current day manufacturing.

Two of the main obstacles for ongoing deployment of the early-generation vision systems is the lack of robustness and flexibility, mostly due to light distortions and inadequate data processing speed.

Light reflections and other variations related to the light source is one of the main challenges for these legacy vision systems, as small variations in reflected light distorts image data and thereby the robustness of the inspection.

Moreover, legacy systems often present manufactures to with a painful trade-off: Since each legacy vision sensor has a limited data processing capacity, manufacturers has to have multiple such sensors if they wish to control various quality points without losing production speed, and high resolution inspections are only feasible if the production speed is low.

All-in-all, the outcome has often been unsatisfying levels of robustness and flexibility—as truly satisfying results are only achievable in environments with very stable light conditions with several sensors and long production cycles, all needing individual set-up and programming.

Luckily, the vision industry is characterized by a high level of innovation driven by a wide range of competing industry players, who all have their take on how to solve these well-known challenges.

At IVISYS, our approach is multidimensional. First of all, we have solved the lighting issue by developing our own light source solutions combined with limited light sensitivity in our image processing.

Secondly, we have decided to make data processing speed a priority. The ongoing revolution in general data processing capacity, following Moore’s law, has enabled several industry players to leverage Ultra High-Definition cameras, which has made a focus on data processing speed mandatory.

However, all vision system technology companies have access to pretty much the same optics as well as the same data processing hardware. Therefore, the specifications of a vision system’s data processing equipment do not really tell the full

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CXO Standpoint story about how a company will keep up with the increasing demand for even speedier solutions in the future.

Instead, manufacturers should really ask in-depth questions when considering a vision system. The real challenge is to develop software which is capable of handling ever increasing data flow levels. If the prospective provider cannot account for how they will be able to keep up with the ever-increasing levels of data available, they will most likely not be able to keep up with the customers’ demands. At IVISYS, our answer to such questions is that we rely on patented image data processing methods, built on novel data processing algorithms, powering our in-house developed software, backed up by test data.

In addition to the inspiration from the Ubers and Airbnbs of the world, we also must relate to a constantly changing environment driven by the rise of Internet of Things, rapidly improving optics and constantly changing data processing capabilities.

All this has made us convinced that the time is no longer only for small integrated single-purpose units. Instead, we believe in building up larger inspection stations, which is a ‘one-stop-shop- for all inspections of an object. Moreover, we provide ‘open solutions’, where each component is replaceable. In addition, the whole technical setup can be moved in its entirety—or alternatively be taken apart and assembled again. The end results are solutions, which are flexible in virtually all regards-- ‘extreme configurability’.

In this manner, our solution resembles the ‘disrupter enablers’ as the customer will always be able to add new capabilities to our systems—and we will not miss any new emerging trends.

About the Author:

Jakob Kesje founders IVISYS

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Jakob Kesje is one of the two founders of IVISYS, he has been a board member and CEO of the company since 2013. Jakob holds an MBA from CBS, Copenhagen Business School. Jakob is chairman of several company boards and has held multiple CEO positions prior to his position at IVISYS, mainly in the manufacturing industry, for companies such as FrontPac AB, FronPac Tryck AB and Frontprint AB. Moreover, Jakob has launched a number of companies and lead them on a path of continued growth, such as Frontwell AB, Johannesson & Co as well as Via Music.

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Editor’s Opinion

Why Do You Need to Advance your Discrete Manufacturing Solutions?

T

he famous British Inventor, industrial designer and the founder of the Dyson Company, James Dyson once said, “Manufacturing is more than just putting parts together. It’s coming up with ideas, testing principles and perfecting the engineering, as well as final assembly.”

yet the productivity is not up to the expectation, it is when the advanced discrete manufacturing solution comes into the scene to help you integrate your existing tools and systems.

Advanced System Can Help You to Monitor Effectively

Experts define Discrete Manufacturing as the production of discrete items. Anything from automobiles, furniture, toys to airplanes can be an example of discrete manufacturing.

Discrete Manufacturers are defined to be the one who seeks to run the operations on a slim model that can take some practice. Manufacturing pioneers have talked about the challenges, importance and the necessity of advanced discrete manufacturing resources. This could be the time you should the know these facts and invest the resources in improving your business.

Integrational Lack May Cause Drop in Business Revenues Industry scenario suggests that most discrete manufacturers have a mix-and-match set of tools. The room for improvement is created with the lack of integration of these tools. It is when the doors of opportunities for advanced discrete manufacturing solution open up. This advanced solution can help businesses to grow with leaner resources, leaving minor pieces to integrate and a better running system. When you have a high-quality existing set of tools,

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For any entrepreneur, the most important task is to know what is happening in its business, how its products are getting manufactured, delivered in proper time and everything else. In short, for any manufacturer, the crucial part is to monitor his manufacturing business entirely.

Apparently, if the managers are not able to visualize the entire manufacturing and distribution operation within the real-time, it becomes almost impossible for them to prioritize the needs. Experts have stated that manufacturers can know what is happening in their business and monitor their resource in real-time with the help of an advanced discrete solution. The latest technological advancements can improve to modify your existing systems and deliver products better and faster to meet customer demands.

Maintain Proper Levels of Inventory It is the list which stands as the key performance indicator, and as experts say, without proper monitoring, one may watch their inventory levels go high up. For any large project or manufacturing order that your company has taken JULY 2017|

up, the right number of stockpiles is of prime importance.

Neither too less, nor too high is right for your business. Too much of inventory can lead to a wastage of space, resources, and funds, but with the latest technology offerings to advance discrete manufacturing solutions, you can quickly fill in the gap created by the imbalance in the levels of inventory.

Only Proper Forecasting Can Help Your Business Grow For any business, forecasting plays an extremely critical role, and it is what can save a company from drowning or take the business forward. Apparently, it is a crucial part to know what is coming forward and take the necessary actions precisely to run a lean manufacturing operation as an improper forecasting might give rise to overproduction, underproduction, wastage of materials and other serious issues. Foreseeing is one such significant quality a manufacturer or any entrepreneur must have to take his/her business forward.

With the advancements in the discrete manufacturing tools, the forecasting can be improved and refined to be more accurate. Manufacturers will hence get to know more about the demands of the customers and will be able to develop its products to maximize the use the resources within their grasp and meet the customers’ needs. While advancing the solutions and tools, businesses can stay in the race and win |JULY 2017

the hearts of customers by delivering even more than expected.

Most businesses are struggling with hundreds of hurdles daily. Challenges can range from anything, from managing stakeholders’ expectations, estimating work and schedule sharing, to managing inflexibility of processes to make scheduling tool dynamic. Manufacturing business can belong to any sector, and in every sector, technology plays a vital role in its growth, irrespective of the type of the product they make.

The significant technological advancements which are going to modifying the world of manufacturing can be named as IoT and Big Data. These are helping production companies to deliver a better product at consistently highquality standards and help them to navigate end-to-end supply chains and manage a strict time-to-market deadline which is often driven by seasonal and customer demands.

Experts said that it often becomes tricky for manufacturers to fulfill the stakeholders’ unreasonable demands within an unrealistic deadline. The advancements in the discrete manufacturing solutions and tools will help the business to be more adaptable and dynamic in nature as flow and adaptability enable manufacturers to deliver better products in a faster pace and end up generating higher revenues.

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WEB AND MOBILE EXPERTS

Custom Web Development A professionally created website and a remarkable design go a long way in creating that impression about your business and thus help in converting a visitor into a customer.

CUSTOM WEB DEVELOPMENT

Mobile Application Development Develop powerful, highly usable apps that solve business problems, attract users, and reinforce your brand.

UI/ UX Our role is to oer the expertise and determination to deliver each site to the utmost standards.

User Engagement MOBILE APPLICATION

We do it by using artiďŹ cial intelligence to provide true end to end personalization and continue to engage shoppers across unlimited segments to deliver experiences that convert.

UI / UX

USER ENGAGEMENT

Email id: contact@ascratech.com | Contact No.: +91-9769162289 | www.ascratech.com

The

10 Most Valuable

Manufacturing

solution provider Companies

Northwest Analytics: Accelerating Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence

Bob Ward CEO Northwest Analytics, Inc.

D

o you remember the time when the introduction of the steam and some other machines revolutionized and mechanized some of the work our ancestors did? Next was electricity, the assembly line and the birth of mass production. With the advent of computers and the beginnings of automation, came in the third era, when robots and machines began to replace human workers on those assembly lines. And now we enter Industry 4.0!

Industry 4.0 introduces what has been called the “smart factory,” in which cyber-physical systems monitor the physical processes of the factory and make decentralized decisions.

The drive to realize value out of the digitization of manufacturing – Industry 4.0 – with some of the latest technologies is a focus for all organizations. Analytics specific to manufacturing are key to unlocking the potential of all the process data that exists as well as data created through new channels (e.g., IoT). Thus, big data and software analytics can have a tremendous impact on modern industries.Focused exclusively on manufacturing for more than 25 years, Northwest Analytics, Inc. is a key supplier of Industry 4.0 analytics and manufacturing intelligence solutions to 35% of the Forbes 1000 manufacturers and more than 3,000 manufacturing customers worldwide.

One-Stop Solution for Enterprise-wide Integration and Real-time Analytics The Northwest Analytics Industry 4.0 analytics platform

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generates digital knowledge using current and emerging manufacturing technology assets to aggregate, analyze, package and deliver results to all levels of the organization ranging from senior executives to process operators. This in turn maximizes product throughput and quality while lowering risk and costs by controlling and impacting processes with real-time, analytics-based decision support.

Their platform enables manufacturers to leverage a full spectrum of analytics techniques and approaches – from predictive and prescriptive to multivariate and SPC – as they find the best fit to address their particular manufacturing challenges or issues. The direct and ubiquitous data-source connectivity of its flagship product, NWA Focus EMI® allows easy data aggregation across multiple disparate data sources without need for duplication (e.g., data lakes) and delivers analytics-based process monitoring and alarming. Additionally, the NWA workforce possesses a unique combination and depth of both technology & manufacturing process knowledge, ensuring the platform matches the needs of their customers.

NWA’s Distinctive and Exemplary Products NWA Focus EMI®: The award-winning Industry 4.0 enterprise analytics platform – with more full production deployments than any other manufacturing real-time analytics provider – delivers company-wide real-time manufacturing visibility from all data sources through a global analytics. Additionally, the analytics platform delivers additional value by enabling and accelerating the impact of other 3rd party predictive analytics solutions.

NWA Quality Analyst®: is an award-winning SPC charting and analysis software solution providing the best combination of power, flexibility, and ease-of-use of any SPC software available. It is a comprehensive statistical process control (SPC) software package for superior real-time SPC charting, analysis, and reporting.

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NWA Quality Information System®: NWA’s Quality Information System provides a complete solution to your quality-system needs, including meeting GMP and ISO quality requirements. It provides manufacturing plants and laboratories a single, unified data collection solution for quality control test stations. In addition, the company offers software assurance, support, technical, and training services. The company's primary markets served include chemical, pharmaceutical & life sciences, oil & gas, packaging and materials. It offers its solutions through a network of distributors and integrators worldwide.

Leading NWA’s Data Revolution The Northwest Analytics senior leadership team’s background is a unique blend of deep analytics, manufacturing and technology knowledge. Robert Ward, Chief Executive Officer at Northwest Analytics Inc., is responsible for all operating aspects of the company. Prior to joining NWA, Robert was the co-founder and managing partner of Capybara Ventures, a venture capital firm specializing in high-growth technology investments.

Informed by more than 25 years of deep manufacturing process knowledge, Louis Halvorsen, Chief Technology Officer, oversees the design, development and support of NWA analytics products and brings. Previously, Louis held management and technical positions in the analytical instrumentation field and worked in research and quality control as an industrial chemist.

Peter Guilfoyle, Vice President of Marketing, is responsible for all aspects of marketing for Northwest Analytics from market strategy creation to channel partner development and program execution. For more than 20 years, Peter has been recognized for his ability to anticipate market moves relative to technology as well as an innovative approach to all aspects of the marketing continuum. Before Northwest Analytics, he held senior marketing roles at Coaxis, Inc, Intel Corporation, Xerox and Tektronix. Responsible for customer engagements at

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Where data and analytics intersect to deliver the promise of Industry 4.0

Northwest Analytics, Jim Petrusich, Vice President of Sales, has a broad background in technology and solutions that involve analytic systems. Over the last decade, Jim has worked on analytic monitoring projects with many large companies and governments in over 40 countries. Prior to joining Northwest Analytics, Mr. Petrusich led sales efforts for Planar Systems and Clarity Visual Systems.

Accessing, Marshaling and Analyzing Data Perceptively The global manufacturing market in general has just recently begun to fully understand the potential of analytics as a value-driver across their operations. And while that has resulted in increased momentum and interest in how to solve real-world problems with analytics, they are now challenged with sorting through the quickly proliferating list of solutions to determine which one(s) best address their particular needs. As the understanding about the application of analytics and internal skill levels build within the ranks of manufacturers, the desire to apply multiple analytics approaches to solve process issues will increase. The ability of the Northwest Analytics platform to access, marshal and analyze data not only increases the value and usability of NWA analytics solutions but also allows manufacturers to create more value from their data by enabling other analytics tools and 3rd party analytics solution providers.

Envisioning Proliferation of Industry 4.0 Initiatives NWA expanded its software reach to the production facilities and added data collection and data management capabilities to its established analytics reputation. As a pre-eminent analytics resource for manufacturers worldwide, Northwest Analytics is viewed as a trusted technology partner for their customers having set the standard for manufacturing analytics in the industry.

Additionally, Northwest Analytics will continue in its role as a visible thought leader by elevating the analytics discussion through industry education events like the Manufacturing Leadership Forum; and serving as a key value driver for Industry 4.0 initiatives.

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Editor’s Pick

ENVIRONME

Responsib

FOR

U

Busi

nder the Environmental Responsibility of the Corporates, it is expected to operate in a manner that protects the environment. Going beyond business activities and taking care of the environment can bring business benefits. Now corporate companies have realized that business activity in an environmentally responsible way is not only a legal duty but also a responsibility. Over the past few years, stakeholders increasingly require corporate organizations to become more environmentally aware and responsible. CSR activities of corporate organizations affect their bottom line and the long-term success of their business.

The environmental aspect of Corporate Social Responsibility had been debated over the past few decades and it's a hot matter of any business house. Earlier in the traditional business model, environmental protection has been considered only in relation to the “public interest”, but now it's a part of business.

Governments of all over the world have maintained the principle of environmental responsibility for ensuring environmental conservation and management as well.

Business Organizations Should Consider these Environmental Points Business organizations should store waste safely and securely, make sure it is treated appropriately and also be ensured that it is collected by an authorized body such as your local authority or a licensed waste

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JULY 2017|

NTAL ilities

ness

contractor. You can also manage waste for recycling by separating paper, plastic, metals and glass and for those organizations that are in the food businesses they need to separate food waste for recycling.

Be sure that your business activities do not cause a statutory nuisance like producing smoke, noise, gases, odor, fumes, accumulating rubbish or light pollution which could affect someone's health. If your business activities pose an imminent threat to the environment, then notify the relevant enforcing body to take steps to prevent the damage and if your activities also cause actual environmental damage then you must take a remedial action to repair the damage. Before directing efuent detergent and waste chemicals into sewage, you should get permission from relevant body.

Take care of Hazardous substances before throw-outs The business organization needs to think about the risks posed by chemicals or hazardous substances to the environment. Hazardous substances include oil, chemicals, pesticides, ozone-depleting substances, radioactive materials, electrical or electronic equipment solvents and biocides. You must ensure that your organization is aware about the environmental risks for every hazardous substance which you store, use, produce or dispose of at work.

If you are in manufacturing business then you must comply with the restriction of the Use of Certain

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Hazardous Substances such as lead, mercury and calcium. Manufacturers are prevented from placing products on the market with more than a certain amount of hazardous substances.

If you work with equipment containing ODS or uorinated gases then there are requirements that you must ensure prevention and repair of leaks, checking for leakages and record keeping recovery for the purpose of recycling.

Store of Wastage and Recycling Business organizations must ensure that any waste they produce as a result of their business operations is stored safely and securely, treated appropriately and collected for disposal or recycling by an authorized body to do so. The regulations of waste management require all businesses to separate the following forms of commercial waste for recycling plastic, paper, metals, and glass.

Conservation and Biodiversity to be protected by the business organizations Biodiversity refers to all species of animals and plants. The increasing human activities cause the loss of biodiversity in the world. All types of business organization operating near these types of the area should be aware, and take responsibilities for conservation and protecting biodiversity.

This not only applies to land-based industries such as farming and forestry but also to all factories, industries, ofďŹ ces and other business activities based on or near biodiversity areas.

Protected areas like UNESCO biospheres include local nature reserves, areas of natural beauty that needs conservation, the heritage of wildlife habitats and national parks of the country.

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JULY 2017|

CXO Standpoint

Ride on any Management Trend with this recipe in 2017

D

o you know wha’s common with Management Trends? – They come and go. Only the best ones will remain. To ride the new wave of management trends in 2017, here is a recipe – OTF – Objective, Team, & Funding.

On a lazy Sunday, I had decided to take a complete holiday when my phone rang. “Sachin, we thank you once again for busting the Business Plan myths. But now we are stuck and would like to meet you again and discuss our dilemmas about Business Plan.” Sid was unstoppable in his fast talk. I said “Sid, Can we talk about this tomorrow?” Sid was persistent, “Sachin, we have to meet to meet today itself!” I said “Sid, I am taking a long awaited break from work today, can we meet tomorrow instead?” Sid announced “It’s urgent!” I said, “I can understand your situation and I hope you will understand mine too.” Surprisingly though, Sid agreed. I was trying to recollect something I wanted to ask Sid. I said, “Sid, you said ‘we’ want to thank you. What exactly you mean by ‘we’? Sid said “We have formed a Business Planning Practitioners Group.” I asked “Who all is there in the Group?” Sid replied with a smile “All of us who met when you busted the Business Planning myths.” I smiled and was eager for Monday discussion.

Sid seems to have decided to take lead for this discussion and we didn’t mind it at all. Sid asked the question in supersonic speed “How can we give direction to a Business Plan? I know there are hundred different things to work on but we I don’t think going after all those things will be a right solution. What do you think?

Objective, Team, & Funding The Business Planning Practitioners Group met and gave first round of orders at the Café. Sam ordered Gourmet Hot Cocoa, Tina ordered Red Velvet Latte, Jenny ordered Cranberry Latte, Julia ordered Cranberry Hot Cocoa, Sid ordered Inverted Cappuccino, and I ordered Strawberry Pom Smoothie.

The storm of questions continued – Why we need objective for a Business Plan? Objective will be same for everybody, either growth/profitability/cost reduction/etc. why waste time? Shall we have one or multiple objectives? I said; let’s design Business Plan objectives for each one of you.

Start-up I asked Sam who is an entrepreneur with Start-up in

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Software Product domain, “What you want to achieve in next one year?” Sam said “I want finding, have an amazing team which will build great products, and get the customers quickly.” I said “Sam, your three objectives are: • Getting customers quickly • Developing team work • Raising funds Sam said “But these objectives sound vague”. I said “Yes, now you will have to add specific details to your objectives like how many customers you want, what kind of team you want to develop, how much funds you will need and how you will utilize those?”

I said, “Sam, now you will need a team to achieve these objectives. In fact, one of your objectives itself is ‘developing teamwork.’ Sam asked, “How can I go about developing a team?” I explained, “You will have to go after identifying team with these skills • Sales • Human Resource • Cofounder Sales skill is important since getting customers quickly is one of the objectives. A human Resource skill is required for developing team work. Cofounder skill is required for raising funds.”

Sam asked, “Now my pressing need is funding. Since I will be developing a product, it will need lots of funds initially.

What should I do?” I replied, “You will need to do following things to get funding: • Proving you are on the right path • Contacting right set of fund providers • Estimating fund requirement precisely

When you are approaching investors while in the process of development, they may avoid you. When you become successful, you will avoid them. That is the rule of the game. When you need funds, they are difficult to get. When you are enough funded, more will approach you with funds.

In development phase, it is important to communicate to the investor that you are on right path. Now you will have to identify and spell out how you are on right path.

We are born with natural instinct for understanding ‘who’ JULY 2017|

About the Author:

Dr. Sachin Bhide, Founder & Strategy Consultant Eha Management Consultancy will fund us. A child knows who will fund her new toy or a dress requirement – father/mother/aunt/uncle/etc. Similarly, you will understand that there are number of sources available for funding. It can be crowd, relatives, friends, well-wishers, Venture Capitalists, Banks, Government Schemes, etc.

While looking for funds, remember not only to look for funds but also look for network of the funds provider, knowledge about your industry, etc.

Midsized Company Tina who is working with a midsized manufacturing company said “My Company wants growth. That’s the only objective we have.” I asked, “How will you understand that you have achieved growth?” Tina replied, “When we have scaled up to newer heights, using technology more effectively, and culture of continuous learning is developed.” I told Tina, “So your Objectives are: • Scaling up • Digitization • Developing learning culture”

Dr. Sachin Bhide, Founder & Strategy Consultant, Eha Management Consultancy. He has received excellent Corporate Trainer award. He is an award winning speaker, had received Best Speaker and Best Table Topic Master award at Toastmaster club in California, USA. This article is an excerpt from Sachin’s upcoming book “Effective Business Plan.”

• Learning and Development (L&D) experts By experience, I don’t want you to restrict your choice only to your industry experience. Since you are looking for scaling up, that's the experience you should look for.

Digitization is possible through Information Technology (IT). By IT experts, don’t just focus on only technological expertise, if you get someone who understand business and IT, it will be more desirable.

What I mean by Learning and Development (L&D) experts is combination of multiple skills – Subject Matter Expertise, Learning Method expertise, and Learning Technology expertise.

A Business Plan can fail for a lack of funding in wellfunded organization. Although your Company has gone through the take-off phase, for maintaining the speed, you need fuel of funding. You will have to do: • Fund estimation for growth • Fund estimate for digitization • Funds for hiring specialists

I continued, “You will have to define how much you want to scale up, what you want to digitize, and what exactly you While estimating fund requirement for growth make sure to identify the right levers for the growth. If you want to want in terms of developing learning culture. increase profitability, you may have to go for premium level customers, which in turn will call for premium quality, and You will have to develop a team with following attributes: which in turn will demand more funds.

Digitization is generic phrase. Funding requirement for • Experienced professionals digitization will change based on what you want to digitize.

• Information Technology (IT) experts |JULY 2017

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Number of midsized companies will find need to digitize it marketing process, supply chain, etc.

For developing learning culture, you will have to hire specialists. This hiring will also require additional funds than normal.”

Multi-National Company (MNC) Jenny said, “Since I am working in a top management of leading Multi-National Company, why should I care for Business Plan, it will be prepared by the Head Office team of our Company. They have created a mess with increased costs, complex reporting structure, and slow growth”. I said, “Since you are part of a top management team, it is your duty to participate in business planning process. You can have following objectives: • Improving cost structure • Solving System issues • Getting back to growth path Team required for execution of effective Business Plan calls for: • Efficiency experts • Systems experts • Turnaround experts

For improving cost structure, you don’t need costing experts but you need efficiency experts. With improved efficiency, you can reduce cost of ownership, operations cost, etc.

By System, I mean Management System and not IT System.

Once you have a right Management System in place, you can solve issues such as complex reporting.

• Improving processes through technology To achieve these objectives, the team you have to gather will require these skills: • City planning experts • Garbage recycling experts • Technology experts

City planning is a specialized skill, so does garbage recycling, and technology for process improvement.

Solving traffic, garbage problem, and technology based process improvement needs funds. You will have to estimate the amount of funds required. For a Government also many options are available for funding. Sources available are internal and external. Each Government has a policy on the investment options that can be opted.

Non-Government Organization (NGO) Sid, who is working with Non-Government Organization (NGO) working on eradication of diseases globally said, “For us, Objective is pretty simple, that is eradicate diseases globally.” I asked Sid, can you completely eradicate the diseases globally?” Sid replied “It’s impossible!” I said, “That’s why your objective may sound simple but it is impossible to achieve”. Sid asked with hesitation, “So what should we do?” I replied, “What you want to improve in next one year?” Sid replied, “Our efforts are haphazard number of times, number of our globally dispersed teams work in isolation, and we are always running out of money.” I said, “In that case, your objectives can be: • Focus • Effective collaboration • Funding

Funding for a Company of this scale calls for: • Identifying investment for saving cost • People, process related fund requirement • Growth related funding requirement For improving efficiency, you will have to invest in quality equipment. For improving people, processes you will need funds. Growth related funding will call for more sales people, investments in new market development, etc.

Government Julia, who is working with a Municipal Corporation said, “Citizens want solution to all of their problems. It is impossible to identify Objectives for our situation.” I asked, “What are the most pressing problems your City is facing?”

Julia replied “traffic, garbage, and our inefficient systems.”

I said, “Objectives for you by adding more specifics can be: • Solving traffic problem • Solving garbage problem

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You just need to add specifics like what to focus on, how you will identify that the collaboration is effective, and how much and from where you will get funds.

You need team with skills like: • Focus • Effective collaboration • Funding

Skill of being ‘focused’ is easy to talk about but difficult to achieve. Collaboration is extension of team work. Skill of funding is inclination toward getting funds.

For getting, keeping, and growing funds, you will need: • Analytics experts • Partnership experts • Selling experts With Analytics, you can get insights. Identifying right partner will improve chances of getting more funds. For getting funding you need a team with selling skills.”

JULY 2017|

Centre of Interest

Initiatives to Drive

&

I

n today’s competitive in the global marketplace, firms need to be driving effective innovation in their services as well as products. Furthermore, it is necessary for them to innovate rapidly and also, to do it costeffectively. This need has been there, but its significance has grown over the last few decades. Even during the period of recession, top leadership was focused on growth, and they believed technology to be the main enabler of innovation.

It is found during a survey that more than 3/4th of industry leaders believed that innovation drives efficiencies. It also leads to competitive advantage. And most of them also believe that technology is one way of capturing both. Nearly seventy percent of decision makers surveyed were investing in IT to become more efficient and to reduce costs, while almost half of them were also funneling funds toward growth initiatives leveraging emerging technologies, like social media and wireless devices.

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Your Role as a Leader Once the right skills, strategy and processes are in place to embrace new ideas and initiatives, there is an opportunity for the thought-leaders to leverage technology to enable innovation.

The list technologies that have converged to drive innovation can be long, but summarizing, cloud computing, analytics, social networking, and mobile device based computing are the key fundamentals. These are the technologies that enable new ways to innovate, develop products, interact with crew & clients, team up, and manage data. It observed that firms showing remarkable results demonstrate greater mastery in leveraging these four digital technologies to innovate, plan, measure result and create value.

Excluding these, many other factors show unique impact when applied, also they are complementary in support of creating value and result. Still, to achieve the growth-driven innovation, the values need to be understood. For example, with social media, people can find people others to collaborate and co-create with. Wireless devices enable access to the databases, to applications, and numerous other purposes. Analytics help us to make action-derived meaning and presentation of all the data.

Driving Innovation and Growth There is a primary factor without which, even the most innovative tech can’t deliver high-value; and that is business strategy and goals. The airtight business plan and a crystal-clear vision of where you want to see the organization are a must, as these factors will help in defining and setting the context for the role development, research, and innovation will play in enabling profitable growth. It will also help to determine the type of innovation wanted and the way you need to organize to effect change.

Innovation can be manifested in multiple ways, but the type of innovation that is needed must be determined. Notably, there are three type of innovations based on industry goals and technology that needs to matched. The first one is, Incremental innovations that make small changes to a company’s existing technologies and business models.

Next, Breakthrough innovations that make significant changes to either the technology or business model, producing significant growth. And finally, Radical innovations, which take place more rarely, combine technology and business model innovation to create major

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new industries with exponential growth.

Companies need to build a set up their work culture around innovation and establish appropriate metrics and processes to integrate innovation into the corporate culture. The organisations who were able to apply this research culture and establish the processes, what difference did they apply?

Which type of skillsets are needed to drive it and is ultimate responsibly in the company for innovation, how the location of various teams need to be decided and how will they collaborate? And finally, how mechanisms and processes around innovation can be defined?

Getting started with innovation First and foremost, it is necessary for companies to understand the ways to organize themselves around innovation, and define processes to get the best results from innovation. Initailly, companies need to consider their strategic imperatives, and ways to make a holistic transformation through process, structure, and people.

Technoception: Innovations used for Innovating The final step is to identify the innovations and latest technologies that are best-suited to their unique circumstances. Companies who work to improve enterprise productivity, need to reduce complexity and then drive a comparatively agile IT environment. As this environment is an enabler for business growth, while using emerging technologies. Notably, Social networks can be used to collaborate and communicate (internally as well as externally) and to cocreate and generate ideas for solutions and service.

Enabling a remote and mobile workforce that can collaborate regardless of time and location can also be done.

Companies can leverage analytics to derive value from connected data and get a comprehensive overview of your information.

Utilizing the cloud technology to optimize your IT are some of the technologies that are adapted widely to for business growth. How companies would create and sustain appropriate executive commitment to execute the innovation program successfully, will depend on the business goals and predictions market scenario, for any particular company.

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The

10 Most Valuable

Manufacturing

solution provider Companies

Sightline Systems: Leveraging Business Intelligence

Brandon Witte President & CEO Sightline Systems

T

he Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is changing the landscape of the U.S. manufacturing industry.

The preeminent way for the manufacturing industry to capitalize on IIoT is to gather increasingly more data from sensors and systems and utilize it to make more datadriven business decisions. Sightline Systems is focused on collecting and analyzing the data made available during the manufacturing process and applying predictive analytics to significantly advance the manufacturing process beyond what it is today.

Sightline EDM’s cutting-edge technology enables manufacturers to collect the right data at the right time, and leverage that data to make proactive business decisions. By implementing advanced analytics solutions such as EDM, manufacturers will have more “a-ha” moments as they produce insights previously clouded by uncertainty or that were unattainable due to limited resources. Sightline EDM delivers these results and more, to enable manufacturers to craft new products and profit centers while simultaneously cultivating production efficiency, reducing costs, preventing downtime, ensuring quality and enhancing their overall ability to strategically plan business operations.

The backbone of Sightline In the daily life of Brandon Witte, he pushes himself to be

36

better, faster and stronger than ever. As a triathlete and Ironman competitor, Sightline Systems’ President and CEO is driven toward success. Many people think that an Ironman is unattainable, but Mr.Witte says that simply is not the case. What it takes is persistence, determination and a commitment to excellence.

It is that same persistence, determination and commitment to excellence that makes Sightline the brand it is today.

“At Sightline, we are committed to delivering innovative products that will help advance the manufacturing industry to achieve optimal results. By listening to our customers, we are always brainstorming ways to help manufacturers meet and exceed production demands while simultaneously reducing downtime and production flaws,” says Brandon Witte.

Witte also stated,“The importance of leveraging manufacturing data has the potential to transform the entire manufacturing landscape as we know it today. Data collection and advanced analytics present significant challenges for manufacturers as the amount and complexity of the data that is produced is immense. Manufacturers that use Sightline products have the opportunity to take advantage of immediate insight gleaned to enhance quality, ensure safety, lower production costs and gain a competitive edge.”

Exceptional solution to lead the manufacturing market EDM collects thousands of data points to identify potentially costly abnormalities in the production process.

As manufacturers gather more insight, they will be able to turn what was once a reactive process into a proactive

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‘‘

Sightline provides predictive analytics and advanced solutions to help your company become better, faster and stronger

scenario where they can understand detect potential flaws in the production system, optimize performance and increase the company’s profitability.

Sightline’s EDM can gather, correlate and analyze data points in a fraction of a second and deliver precise predictions based on time series data throughout any point in the production cycle. EDM has successfully predicted flaws in fans and other production components, enabling manufacturers to not only address the issue before it becomes a problem, but to rev up production and save millions for the company.

Sightline also has a strong belief that technology must be easy to use. Sightline believes that its unique offering differentiates from others in the market by providing business users with the results which are typically only imitative by data scientists. They strive to tame powerful technologies and provide them in a simple to understand way. Sightline makes big data easy, providing machine learning and powerful analytics without requiring the user to understand the advanced statistics and algorithms that are usually reserved for only the data scientist community.

Using Sightline, manufacturing gains a holistic snapshot that allows them to connect the dots between production processes, the supply chain and the back office, and all while increasing quality and reliability at the same time.

Future advancements for setting up the benchmark Sightline Systems is truly a global company. Recently Sightline EDM was selected by a major global appliance manufacturer to provide real-time analysis of their

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manufacturing processes. The IIoT EDM software will be included in manufacturing operations around the world and will offer never before seen real time visibility. The manufacturer is planning multi-country rollout of EDM in Q3 of 2017 to help the company attain a substantial competitive benefit.

“The advanced EDM tool can analyze massive volumes of data created during the manufacturing process, correlate the data and provide highly sophisticated analytics in real time.

The highly advanced processing ability allows engineers to quickly identify issues and make process improvements which can increase quality and reduce costs,” Witte added.

Sightline’s IIoT EDM solution has already topped the expectations of another global manufacturer, providing high speed data collection and analysis of manufacturing processes. Their EDM for manufacturing is simultaneously monitoring multiple PLCs, manufacturing sensors, IIoT devices, storage devices, network devices, peripherals such as cameras and door locks and more all in real time. The company was particularly interested in the millisecond analytics as it is critical for precision manufacturing, and EDM is specifically designed to provide the real-time data manufacturers with the need to make smarter, more cost effective decisions on the fly.

Sightline aims to be an industry front-runner in manufacturing operations analytics. They are continually investing in their software offerings and are committed to providing their manufacturing customers with the most advanced analytics platform available in the market today.

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Manufacturing Thing

Manufacturing: The Upcoming Era of Global Growth and Innovation

I

t was a stormy decade for the global manufacturing sector. Due to severe recession, there was choking of the demand and manufacturing employment fell down at a high speed in advanced economies. Manufacturing still remains precariously important to both the developing and the advanced world. Manufacturing continues to provide a pathway from ration agriculture to growing incomes and living standards. On the other hand, it still remains a crucial source for innovation and competitiveness. The manufacturing sector has changed by bringing both opportunities and challenges. Neither the business leaders nor the policy makers can rely on old responses in the new manufacturing environment.

Manufacturing is the future of global growth and innovation. Today, manufacturing is contributing to the global economy and will probably unfold over the coming decade.

• The role of manufacturing is changing. In today’s advanced economies, manufacturing promotes innovation, productivity and trade more than the growth and employment.

• Manufacturing is diminutive. With five distinct groups of industries, it is a diverse sector with specific drivers of success.

• Manufacturing is introducing a dynamic phase. It is

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predicted that the global manufacturers will have significant new opportunities in a much more hazy/ hazier environment.

Changing Role of Manufacturing It is seen that manufacturing continues to grow globally.

The relative size of the manufacturing sector varies with its stage of development in an economy. As the economies industrialize, manufacturing employment and output both rise rapidly. But once manufacturing’s share of GDP increases, it falls in an inverted U pattern. This arises because the consumers have more money to spend on services. Manufacturing becomes a source of growth and employment and consequently the growth in the sector is accelerated.

Manufacturing and services are independent and fundamentally offbeat sectors. From logistics to advertising, everything makes up an increasing amount of manufacturing activity. Hiring in manufacturing may hasten, and some nations may even boost net exports.

Whether in production or nonproduction roles, manufacturers will still continue to hire workers. As a result of ongoing productivity improvements, accelerating growth in services, and the force of global competition in the long run, manufacturing’s share of employment will remain under pressure. It will help the advanced economies to train in activities which require more skills.

JULY 2017|

Manufacturing is Diminutive It is not possible for two manufacturing industries to be exactly alike. It always differs with more or less labor, and more or less knowledge-intensive. Some of them depend massively on transportation, while for others, closeness to the customers is a serious affair. After analyzing the five board manufacturing segments, different production factors are being influenced. The largest segment by gross value addition includes industries such as autos, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. These industries rely massively on global innovation for local markets. The second largest segment is regional processing, which includes industries such as printing and food and beverages.

Entering a New Dynamic Phase A new global consuming class will soon emerge in near future. The majority of consumption will take place in developing economies. It will create rich new market opportunities. Demand is fragmenting in established markets, as customers ask for greater variation and more types of after-sale service. A rich pipeline of innovations in materials and processes- from nano materials to 3D printing to advanced robotics promises to create fresh and new demands and drive further productivity gains across manufacturing industries and geographies.

These opportunities arise in an extremely challenging environment. In some low-cost labor markets, wage rates are rising rapidly. It creates an environment that is far more uncertain than it was before with volatile resource prices, a looming shortage of highly skilled talent, and heightened supply-chain and regulatory risks.

Manufacturers and Policy Makers Need New Approaches and Capabilities It is necessary for the companies to develop highly detailed understanding of specific emerging markets, as well as the needs of their existing customers. An agile approach to the development of strategy will also be required using scenario planning rather than point forecasts. They will have to make big bets on long-range opportunities, such as tapping new markets in developing economies or switching to new materials, but must do so in ways that minimize risk.

|JULY 2017

A critical challenge for manufacturers will be to approach footprint decisions in a more nuanced way. It is seen that labor-intensive industries will almost always follow the path of low wages. But in case of others, with more complex needs, they must weigh factors such as access to low-cost transportation, to consumer insights, or to skilled employees. The result could very well be a new kind of global manufacturing company- a networked enterprise that uses “big data” and analytics to respond quickly and decisively to changing conditions and can also pursue longterm opportunities.

The policy must be grounded in a comprehensive understanding of the diverse industry segments in a national or regional economy, for policy makers. The long term goals for growth, innovation and exports are best served by supporting critical enablers for manufacturers. It is helping them to forge the connections they will need to access rapidly growing emerging markets.

Two key priorities for both governments and businesses are education and the development of skills. Companies have to build their R&D capabilities, as well as expertise in data analytics and product design. They will need qualified, computer-savvy factory workers and agile managers for complex global supply chains. In addition to supporting ongoing efforts to improve public education- particularly the teaching of math and analytical skills- policy makers must work with industry and educational institutions to ensure that skills learned in school fit the needs of employers.

The key drivers for manufacturing in the near future are demand, technology and innovation, global competition and changing nature of work. It is also important for the policy makers to be more sophisticated. There will be an increase in number of consumers till the next decade. Technology and innovations are not going to stop. There are tremendous amount of innovations that we are going to see along business innovations. A new era of global competition can also be seen in the future. The change in the nature of work will affect the manufacturing sector. In all, we can declare that the upcoming era of global growth and innovation in manufacturing is on its way.

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