BUSINESS 4.0

How To Ensure The Success Of Your IIoT-Powered Business Transformation

As manufacturers and machinists, you're increasingly pressed to work faster and cheaper while providing better results. And your customers usually only engage with you when they have a problem or a challenge.

For most businesses, the answer to higher customer engagement is through data, which through IIoT (industrial internet of things) can be accessed remotely from machines to drive insight-led decisions. This allows you to move swiftly and, more importantly, proactively, instead of reacting to customer events. At the same time, you can benefit from opportunities for new revenue streams and business models.

Determining Your Desired Business Outcomes In my experience, success is strongly tied to understanding the benefits of technology before ever implementing anything new or different to your business. Taking some time to consider how tech can impact your business outcomes can help you uncover the right changes for your situation, such as:

More Efficient Production Lines The ability to ensure your machinery has high production efficiency and is always up and available is one of the promises of IIoT-led business transformations.

Through constant monitoring and analysis of your assets, you can gather real-time insights into areas of your operations that can be optimized, allowing teams to work more effectively and without any unplanned downtime. beneficial outcomes of modern business transformations is the ability for machine manufacturers to switch to servitization financial models, otherwise known as 'equipment-as-a-service' (EaaS).

Predictive Capabilities The output of data aggregated through connecting machinery and processes allows your business to predict events such as maintenance needs or anomalies before they occur — offering more intelligence into the machine operations. This capability significantly reduces costs related to a decrease in unplanned downtime, improving your production efficiency while making your operations agile and profitable.

Furthermore, by improving reaction time to address preventative maintenance events, predictability can reduce time spent during planned outages and, more importantly, ensure lower maintenance budgets.

EaaS is critical for various reasons, including aligning of interests between operators and machine manufacturers, cost savings for operators, and more stable and predictable revenue models for manufacturers — a necessity especially in times of economic uncertainty.

Like software-as-a-service, dubbed SaaS by the tech industry, EaaS allows manufacturers to lease out production on a contractual basis. With this model, customers pay for the output as an operating expense versus large capital expenditures.

One example of EaaS in action is Coborn, a company that supplies machines for the diamond tooling industry. Traditionally, its fully automatic and highly precise grinding machines would be purchased outright by its customers.

Now, by making its machines “smart” and utilizing AI-based analytics, not only can Coborn provide its equipment for a usage fee, but the company can also guarantee performance, reliability, and availability targets.

New Business Models And Revenue Streams While operators of machinery benefit from predictability and efficiency of the machines, one of the most exciting and

By offering “diamond-grinding-asa-service,” Coborn can also have more touchpoints for support to interact with the customer, strengthening the relationship, as well as predicting new needs or pain points.

Should You Buy Or Build A Smart Ecosystem? For many businesses, deciding to bring on new technologies and business processes is only the first step. From there, you need to determine whether the best option is to build an intelligent platform yourself or bring in an expert partner.

Either way, the most important thing to remember is that if you're approaching a digital business transformation only from a money-saving perspective, you're putting the proverbial cart before the horse.

Cost savings are a typical byproduct of intelligent machines, simplified financial models, and improved operations; however, a successful implementation takes more than technological capabilities to save on expenses.

Success also depends on your internal skills and expertise, how well teams are aligned on goals and key performance indicators (KPIs), and your organizational collaboration.

There are several important questions to consider before a single device or sensor gets set up to help determine if you should work with a partner or go at it alone.

Understanding your staffing capabilities: Does your team have the vital skills needed to build the right connectivity and security into your new business platform and workflows?

Even the most basic business transformation project requires a broad range of specialty expertise, from server infrastructure and software development to embedded technologies and electrical engineering, not to mention the skilled staff on the shop floor who will physically install and maintain the devices and systems. These skill sets ensure a functioning technology ecosystem that remains secure.

Understanding your budget: Do you have available resources to focus on the project in addition to your core business? Even if your team has the technical experience and skills, they'll be siphoned away from their current responsibilities in other areas of your business. Do you have the bandwidth for this?

If not, you'll have to hire and retain new employees who have the skills needed to make your business transformation project successful.

Understanding your timeline: Do you have the time to train your team on the required areas of technology and modern processes? No matter the size of your platform, every IIoT-based project requires ample time and resources. Once your strategy is in place, and you purchase the necessary technology and devices, you'll need

to train and deploy resources to implement, manage, monitor, and maintain the new systems.

Understanding how your project will grow: Is your solution scalable, and will it keep up with ever-evolving technology? Any IIoT ecosystem should be hardwired with adaptability and extensibility from the beginning. This ensures it can extend to other projects or units within your business and continue to grow with you over time.

Beyond the rollout, plan on your IIoT solution to remain in motion. With ongoing tech advancements and additional opportunities uncovered when you start aggregating data, be sure to consider the long-term nature of your platform as well.

Which Route Is Right For Your Business? Regardless if you decide to buy or build your intelligent business platform, it's essential first to get internal alignment. While IT will need to be involved for technical aspects, leadership from the business side, such as sales, operations, product development, HR, and so on, are also critical.

Ensuring everyone is aligned when it comes to defining success helps for a smooth implementation. Working with an expert partner can help facilitate these conversations; however, not all third parties are of the same caliber. When you're investing hundreds of thousands, or even millions, on technology integration, you must find a partner who understands your desired business outcomes. This partner should work closely with decision-makers at your business to implement the solutions needed to fit your specific needs.

To find the best solutions providers, evaluate their responses to the following questions to get a sense of their processes and how you will work together: 1. Will the project be customized to your business? 2. How do they approach the benefits you'll receive by working with them? 3. Do they converse with technical jargon, or do they communicate in a way that means something to you? 4. How will they support you in the beginning and with your ongoing needs? 5. Do they discuss how to scale the project to other areas of your business? 6.

Do they offer retrofitting or ways to connect the IIoT solution with your legacy systems?

While their responses will help you find the right fit for your business, remember that all problems aren't equal, which primarily drives the need for customized solutions. After all, finding the right co-creator in developing your IIoT project can mean the difference between success and failure.

Don't Wait To Get Started The benefits of undergoing an IIoT business transformation in manufacturing and machining operations are clear, especially at a time when your customers are demanding higher-quality products for less money and quicker turnarounds.

Whether you attempt to build a proprietary platform or work with a third-party partner, embracing digitization can give you the competitive edge for years to come — well after IIoT becomes the standard in the industry.