The Rise of Industry 4.0:

Industry 4.0 is about maximizing safety, productivity, and profitability through connectivity. 

Technology and market demands continue to evolve faster than ever, meaning that companies are now looking for ways to stay ahead of the curve. While many manufacturing leaders have deployed new methods and technologies, the fact remains that profitability relies on connected data, teams, and processes.

Ascending the digital maturity curve comes down to the power of your insights and decision-making…and having the right tools to digitize your frontline.

The Connection Between Digital Maturity and Digital Transformation in Manufacturing

Digital transformation refers to integrating digital technologies into all areas of a business, resulting in fundamental changes to how the business operates and delivers value to customers.

In manufacturing and industrial settings, digital transformation is essential for remaining competitive, efficient, and sustainable in today's rapidly changing and increasingly digital world. However, successful transformation is intrinsically linked to where manufacturers lie on the digital maturity curve.

Utilize our Manufacturing Scorecard today:

The digital maturity curve assesses a company’s digital readiness for integrated and connected work technologies.

Ultimately, digital maturity comes down to a company’s digital foundation: do they have the mindset, tools, and systems to support the digital transformation needed for connectivity?

Phase I: Digital Isolation

When manufacturers rely on paper-based processes and workflows on the frontline, this leads to digital isolation. In other words, manual workflows create restrictions when it comes to communicating between teams, accessing accurate data, and creating safety and training processes. 

As a result, workers are getting left behind. Without on-the-go access to the right information at the right time, people are put at a disadvantage, which puts safety, quality, and efficiency at risk. 

So how do manufacturers bring their companies out of digital isolation? 

Bottom line? It comes down to digital readiness, transformation, and utilizing the right tools.

Phase II: Building Your Digital Foundation

Goal: Drive Adoption of New Technology at Scale

Driving digitization isn’t just about implementing digital tools—you must enable scalability and the seamless adoption of new technologies by building your digital foundation. This is because implementing technology is more about changing behavior and mindset rather than changing the technology itself.

One of the first steps to building a solid digital foundation is optimizing your frontline work for the use of smartphones and tablets. Start first by streamlining data such as forms, checklists, audits, and inspections across quality, EHSS, production, and maintenance. 

Phase III: Connecting Your Workers

Goal: Real-Time Updates & Decision Making

After establishing a solid digital foundation and enabling frontline workers with the mobile technology they need to digitally complete their tasks while on the go, you can turn them into connected workers.

Connected workers are empowered through systems that are updated in real-time and connect them to the systems, people, and machines they need to provide accurate insights.

When workers are used to the new technology, behaviors such as pulling and integrating data from systems like ERP, CMMS, MES, IoT, and more are no longer hefty, drawn-out processes. Instead, the focus is on driving improvements and eliminating non-value-added activities throughout every workflow in every factory.

Real-time updates to and from the frontline are the only way to make your operations agile. 

Phase IV: Transforming Your Operations

Goal: Optimized Frontline Work within a Smart Manufacturing Ecosystem

The ultimate transformation comes from bringing together the puzzle pieces to form an adaptable ecosystem of solutions and partners.

This new ecosystem relies upon a fully realized and connected digital strategy to identify and integrate necessary elements, such as artificial intelligence or Smart Factory components. Additionally, a truly optimized frontline should allow workers to complete work with all known outcomes and responses to perform tasks safely and efficiently.

The key characteristic of a transformed operation is this: the cycle doesn’t stop with completion: all data surrounding tasks is fed back to the appropriate systems and used to measure and improve future processes.

As your facility moves away from digital isolation and toward a connected workforce, the entire operation shares in the benefit of your advanced digital maturity. 

See How Connected Worker® Advanced Georgia Pacific Along the Digital Maturity Curve

Before leveraging Parsable’s Connected Worker solution, Georgia Pacific (GP) faced a number of challenges:

• Fluctuations across sites directly affecting profitability
• Site equipment and machinery differed widely
• Their retirement-aged workforce was departing in large numbers
• Tacit knowledge wasn’t being transferred to new talent
• Their standardized maintenance procedures were leading to unplanned downtime.  

Implementing Connected Worker® involved:

• Providing standard and clear digital work instructions across corrugated sites
• Collaborating to document and share best practices to eliminate procedural mistakes and level up the workforce’s skill efficiency