Smart Manufacturing: A Unified Ecosystem for the Next Normal
Mitigate disruptions and adapt to changing demands in the post-pandemic future with the industrial internet of things (IIoT) powered by the 3DEXPERIENCE® platform.
Recent disruptions that affected the global economy, such as shortages of raw materials and parts, have made manufacturers realize the cost of deferring the adoption of digital transformation and smart manufacturing.
We spoke with Prashanth Mysore, Strategic Business Development Director at Dassault Systèmes, to get the answers to how digital transformation prepares manufacturers for disruptions and enables them to thrive in a post-pandemic future.
Manufacturers can achieve this [agility] by making data actionable. We know that data insights are crucial for flexible and resilient supply chains that can move rapidly to meet shifts in market demands and customer requirements. But aggregating and making sense of the data requires the right digital solution.
Smart Manufacturing for Disruptive Times
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Overcome Disruptions and Global Trade Tensions
What has the recent COVID-19 disruption and ongoing US-China trade tensions taught us about the shortcomings of manufacturing operations, the supply chain and value network?
Many supply chains overly rely on one particular country or setup. The unprecedented health crisis left manufacturers from all industries scrambling to find alternate suppliers to keep their factories running due to decades-long reliance on low-cost supplies, minimal inventory and growing worker health and safety concerns.
Manufacturers need to increase agility. They must modernize, optimize and automate to reduce reliance on manual and labor-intensive operations that are difficult to redeploy when disruptions hit. This will also help them achieve optimal health, safety and environment (HSE) for their workers and operations.
Is it possible that recent disruptions have highlighted a positive potential for manufacturers?
Yes. Manufacturers can reorient their operations and supply chains by adopting smart manufacturing and accelerating their digital journey. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform transforms the manufacturing experience in four ways:
- Collaborate: Engage all parties on an integrated business platform to ensure business continuity
- Model: Use the virtual twin to model manufacturing assets, facilities, products and processes to address current and future challenges
- Optimize: Improve supply chain planning to enhance transparency and efficiency
- Perform: Leverage the platform to deliver the right data at the right time and place, with a higher level of visibility and safety
How have our manufacturing customers pivoted their production to respond to supply chain disruptions and changing customer demand?
The Australian company B&R designs and produces electrical enclosures. It utilized Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform to keep its business running during COVID-19 by enabling remote collaboration between teams.
To expedite ventilator development, Indian startup Inali collaborated with design, healthcare and engineering experts from the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab OPEN COVID-19 online community. Cloud-based digital applications enabled the Inali team to design, engineer, simulate, manufacture and validate a 3D-modeled prototype of the ventilator. Together with the experts, they took only eight days to develop a safe and affordable smart ventilator that can be quickly manufactured locally with readily available and lower-cost parts.
Manufacturers need to look at the complete ecosystem of manufacturing processes, operations and supply chain. The focus has to shift from low-cost inventory and manufacturing to agility, adaptability and resilience to disruptions. To achieve this, data has to be made actionable.
Data insights are crucial for flexible and resilient supply chains that can move rapidly to meet shifts in market demands and customer requirements. But aggregating and making sense of the data requires the right digital solution.
Leverage the Right Digital Support
Below are some specific steps on how manufacturers can utilize digital solutions on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to make use of data insights and perform better:
Be resilient
First, manufacturers can model a virtual twin of the factory on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to design the production shop floor for resilience and model scenarios, and test out potential responses to disruptions.
Be efficient
Second, manufacturers can optimize planning and scheduling as well as adopt lean manufacturing, automation and robotics to raise efficiency and create leaner, more resilient operations.
Be flexible
Third, stakeholders can collaborate on the platform to build a flexible ecosystem of suppliers and partners. Flexible networks can help companies foresee disruptions (e.g., shortfalls in raw materials and parts), respond rapidly to changing market demands and expand output capacity by 15 to 20%.
Map Future Success Digitally
The IIoT is central to factories of the future – and more manufacturers will utilize virtual twins, IIoT sensors and devices as well as artificial intelligence (AI).
With these technology tools, manufacturers can analyze internal and external data, optimize existing processes, model risk scenarios, deploy early warning technologies and develop pre-programmed responses. The virtual twin experience will become even more valuable in increasing operational efficiency and flexibility.
Meanwhile, digital collaboration and real-time visibility are important for achieving flexibility. Cloud-based digital collaboration enhances information sharing as well as the quality and speed of decision-making within the organization and across the supply chain network. With the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, manufacturers can leverage the integral cloud-based capabilities to thrive against disruptions today and beyond.
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