Empower Your Manufacturing Sales with Digital Transformation Sales for Manufacturing

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hello everyone and welcome to the driving digital stand up i'm isaac sokolek or ny ike on twitter and i'm super excited today on the show we have martin davis from dunn elm associates he's currently the cio at mevatec and he's going to explain to us the differences between digital transformation and industry 4.0 in manufacturing let's get started martin it's great to have you thank you for joining us on the driving digital stand up it's great to be here isaac and great to chat to you again so martin you know we talk a lot about digital transformation and you and i have worked across multiple industries digital transformation largely first known in media and retail and increasingly more in other industries tell us what industry what the digital transformation means in the manufacturing industry i think as as most people know digital transformation is about focus on the customer and it's how do you actually deliver value for the customer and how does that then drive yeah you to do different things in your business and i think from a manufacturing perspective it's the same meaning from digital transformation how do you actually deliver more value for the customer how do you change your business to do that but the slight difference is is internally within manufacturing people talk a lot about industry 4.0 and industry 4.0 is really about data how do you use data to better drive your manufacturing and deliver value through that use of data and through automated processes and automation and other things like that so slightly different meaning of digital transformation in manufacturing but the two are complementary if you think about how a customer is getting value from your business and then you think about how do you translate that how does manufacturing deliver value through use of data so that internal driver of value delivers value to the customer so you kind of look at it from a perspective of okay what does that customer want our customer wants your high quality products they want them in a timely manner etc etc and then your use of data internally in manufacturing through industry 4.0 and other approaches like that is looking at the data to drive that quality and the data to drive your productivity the data to drive that value that then goes to the customer you know martin uh when we talk about customers in in manufacturing i'm i'm picturing mostly wholesale right wholesale buyers and we're living in a time when supply chain is an issue so it's part of this not just quality but being able to do more just in time ordering and knowing that you can get parts delivered when required oh definitely yeah supply chain is a big part of this and that whole interlinking from your your raw materials your inbound delivery of those through to your manufacturing process through to your outbound shipping that whole entire supply chain from end to end so it finally gets to the customer is all important so that information about what's happening in your supply chain so that you can fulfill those customer needs is absolutely crucial to this and you're starting to see more data driven approaches within that so yeah if you're saying okay the customer needs this product in a certain time frame okay then you're backing that through your whole supply chain but it's becoming more dynamic supply chain because of the uh interruptions and the disruption to the supply chain you're having to look at how that data is changing on a daily basis no longer a case of okay we know that that raw material shipping from our supplier is going to take us x weeks to get here then we need a week or two whatever it is to manufacture and then you know however much time to ship to the customer that now will becoming a bit more disrupted and dynamic yeah and maybe that ship with that product coming in was due to take a month it's now going to take two months so how do you build those things in how do you have more buffers in your supply chain to feed your manufacturing so your manufacturing plant is actually continued to be yeah fully occupied it's not sitting there idle and things like that so i think that we're seeing a lot more dynamic changes within supply chain and more dynamic scheduling within the manufacturing driven by this disrupted supply chain you no longer rely upon it and i'm assuming part of this equation whether it's you know the data side or so on the productization side understanding customer demand what they're looking for and fluctuations in demand for certain products is that part of the equation as well oh certainly is yes and the the trouble is as well with the if you look at what's been happening through covert and the disruption not to the supply chain but there's also disruption in the marketplace as well yes some of what you thought was a reasonable level of sales can be going up and down by as much as 100 percent driven by external factors and we've seen you know panic buying cause um yeah shortages and other aspects like that things that are very disruptive to the marketplace so we're living in a far more dynamic world which used to be a case of if you think about the automotive world you think about just-in-time manufacturing yeah where the vendors are supplying just what's needed for the manufacturing process just when it's needed they can flow straight into the manufacturing plant to produce the vehicles and the vehicles are out the door yeah we've seen disruption here take chips for example yeah the disruption the chip manufacturing side of things has led to shutdown of manufacturing plants so it's becoming instead of just in time it may be just or a form of just in time but more buffer stock built into that so that if you do get disruption supply chain you're not closing down your manufacturing so i think we're seeing these modifications and we're seeing this happening all the time so this kind of disruption to supply chain disruption to buying patterns disruption to availability of some raw materials it's causing all sorts of problems and the best way you can deal with a lot of that is by carefully looking at the data having the data of what's physically going on on a moment by moment basis and that applies to all aspects of your your manufacturing and your supply chain so i'm getting that nice picture of fluctuations on the supply side and on the demand side that you're you're using data you're gauging which products to manufacture and what quantities where to ship them what about the product development itself i mean using this data to start saying we need to be in category x or we need to enhance and have variations of product y uh that we didn't anticipate we talk a little bit about that because that's really where the innovation comes from right and and and manufacturers saying i can get ahead of the curve because i know certain products are going to be in demand and i don't think that's really changed that's always been the case of you know if you can find the right niche for your products and how you're going to develop and develop in the marketplace or if you can predict or develop a new way of doing business yeah if you look at some of what the digital transformation side of things look at the service based uh add-ons to physical products yeah and then some of that started with the um aero engines yeah and the renting uh hours of flight time as opposed to buying an engine yeah that's the typical example of that transition from physical product purchases to services yeah the more you can innovate in terms of uh identifying where there's a niche where there's a need and or ways of doing business differently then you're going to win and that hasn't really changed that's always been the case throughout the life cycle and i think if you go to yeah harvard you're going to do your mba or whatever else yeah they will always talk about innovation and talk about how you're finding that appropriate niche and i don't think that's really changed i don't think the current marketplace and kova and other things it may have changed the cycle time for innovation i think we're seeing things changing faster but i don't think it's really changed the fundamental facts around you know how you win in a marketplace that's a great advice and martin you know i'm labeling and and crowning you the digital trailblazer in manufacturing uh you got all this good concepts around industry 4.0 and digital transformation you know if i'm an emerging leader i'm an aspiring leader what i call a digital trailblazer working in manufacturing what's some of the advice you would give them uh i think let's say always focus on the customer first so you talk about digital transformation it's customer driven how can you add value how can you make the customers life easier and that then translates into how you do things differently in your business and how you deliver more value then secondly i would say look at the data how can you drive your business through the use of data and if you think about industry 4.0 really it's about turning live data from your equipment into real-time information to make decisions and improve your processes and those can be manual decisions or they could be automated it could be through machines deciding to adjust your manufacturing process on an automated basis it could be robots with vision systems looking at what they're doing it could be safety systems identifying risks around a product or something else that's then shutting the machine down it could be any of those aspects all of it though it comes down to data in some form or other and using that data to make better decisions that then drives your improvements in your business which then drives those customer values and what the customer values coming out the other end yeah martin's great advice because you know i think about cios working in manufacturing and i'm going to visit the plant and the factories and so forth but what you're saying is do that plus go out and visit your customers go see how they're using your products and services rethink what how data is going to play into gaining an edge around that i think that's really sound advice uh martin thank you for joining uh this episode of the driving digital stand up where can people find you so um check out our website danellemassociates.com that's than elm d-u-n-e-l-m associates dot com um and check us out on twitter as well you can check me out mcdavis10 on twitter thank you isaac it's been a great chatting with you great chatting with you hope to see you soon you