Whitepaper Sponsored by Life Cycle Engineering
This paper examines the great promise of Industry 4.0, why it has been slow to catch on, its crucial relationship to asset management, and seven building blocks for digital
transformation to accelerate the journey and maximize the outcomes.
The constant buzz around digital transformation and Industry 4.0 is reaching a fever pitch.
With it comes the growing assumption that asset-intensive organizations understand it, want it, and its success is assured. The reality, however, is more nuanced.
The concept itself is decidedly appealing: Who wouldn’t want intelligent, self-optimizing
digital manufacturing and maintenance solutions that simplify decision making, elevate
performance and productivity, increase uptime, and slash costs?
Yet, the prospect of transformational change can seem overwhelming. For executives and
department heads, it is a multifaceted cost-benefit decision that weighs a potentially
substantial return on investment (ROI) and key performance metric gains, the risk of missing out competitively, considerable technology and organizational culture change, and
implementation complexity and costs. For front-line personnel, revolutionary advancements
may be exciting for some and elicit concerns about skills adequacy, job security, and loss of
control for others.
Early adopters of Industry 4.0 initiatives–whether limited pilot implementations, larger
application or site deployments, or extensive greenfield projects–undoubtedly encountered
stumbling blocks along the way. Anyone considering or beginning the strategy can avoid the obstacles with some foundational preparation. Even those already on the journey would do well to revisit the building blocks to accelerate and improve their results.
