For the past two years, James Dyson has been working on addressing the question, how do you visualise the future needs of a business and try to bridge the gap between it and today’s reality?
Here’s how the team at Jaguar Land Rover are navigating towards the smart factory dream.
Revolution or evolution?
In the age of Industry 4.0, closing the gap between automation and cyber-physical systems isn’t simply a matter of ‘flicking a switch’.
Realistically, the move to being a smart factory, for large scale manufacturers, is more about constant evolution rather than revolution. While you want the products you design to disrupt the market place, ‘disruption’ is the last thing you want on your production line.
Real time decision-making
Truly sound commercial decisions are made with a 360 degree view of the business, not purely data from one area.
James Dyson, Tools & Methods Manager at Jaguar Land Rover is speaking at The Manufacturer’s Annual Leaders Conference
Nov 2 – 3, The NEC
On day one of the conference, Dyson will discuss the importance of starting from a solid data foundation, the challenge of moving mind-sets, and the benefits a single version of the truth can bring to cross-functional working.
This year, the nation’s biggest manufacturing-led event focuses on Industry 4.0 – the technology-driven digitisation of manufacturing processes, from design and engineer, to manufacture and service.
TMALC 2016 sets the stage to answer all of UK manufacturing’s questions regarding this fundamental shift to the industrial landscape, with experts from across industry providing analysis and commentary on the biggest wave of disruptive innovation since the dawn of robots more than half a century ago.
Visit www.tmalc.com for more information.
Imagine this: data from the manufacturing floor has highlighted a vehicle part that needs replacing.
The engineer looks at the mechanical and technical specifications; however, these are not the only considerations. What about the financial cost, supply chain and logistical impacts of this change?
Waiting for a team of analysts to go away and research the answer isn’t ideal; decision-makers need information at their fingertips.
Joining the data dots
The Tools and Methods team at Jaguar Land Rover firmly understand that the path to accelerated decision-making starts with joining the data dots.
It identified the need to connect the data flowing between all areas of the business that make up the cross functional module team.
Even before the exciting, predictive analytics part of the smart factory journey can begin data needs to be collated, cleaned, connected and deliver meaningful value to the business.
Accessing the data
Jaguar Land Rover had already set about capturing and storing the data in question, however, it needed support on how to share this information with a large, cross-functional user base.
It collaborated with Bluefin, Mindtree’s award winning SAP consultancy, to assist with navigating through these road bumps. The goal being to create a reporting tool that all areas of the business can use; a single source of the truth to speed up decision making.
The road-bumps:
- Changing mind-sets – opening up the minds of people as to what’s possible. Having an iterative, agile approach to the project has helped overcome this: once people see the potential the innovative ideas flow.
- Getting the buy-in – we all expect great user experience in today’s connected world, even in the work place. Design a user friendly solution and adoption will follow.
- Big data – when you’re connecting multiple teams, you need to ensure your systems can cope with the projected amounts of data you’re recording and sharing.
The payoffs:
- One version of the truth will be available between the teams.
- Once data is accessible predictive analytics can be leveraged, allowing the business to significantly increase their pro-active decision making capabilities.
- Man hours currently spent waiting for, mining and analysing the data can be focused on other areas, allowing Jaguar Land Rover to do more with their current resources.
James Dyson and the team at Jaguar Land Rover recognise that becoming a smart factory can’t happen overnight. They’ve identified the milestones in their journey and are laying down a strong data foundation on which to build. Hear more from James and his team at TMALC discussing data driven decision-making.
