Accelerating Manufacturing Innovation at Scale:
Solving mutual challenges through open collaboration
A publication by the Open Manufacturing Platform June 2020 The State of Manufacturing
Our sector is undergoing a wholesale digital transformation in both the things we make and the way that we make them. New technologies are reinventing what’s possible, upending the competitive landscape, making smart factories a reality and smart products pervasive.
Manufacturers that have effectively implemented these technologies gain significant advantages such as greater operational efficiencies, factory output, customer loyalty, and net profits. They quickly adapt to new challenges – including the unexpected, like COVID-19 – because these technologies empower them with capabilities such as: • visibility and agility across the entire supply chain • the ability to make quick, data-backed decisions by rapidly simulating alternatives and identifying patterns in large data samples • the ability to ramp-up production of urgently needed supplies through the use of 3D printing
However, as manufacturers, we face formidable challenges in adopting these new technologies. We often share the same problems and have struggled to solve them alone, investing significant resources for an indeterminate ROI. For instance, a common challenge felt throughout our sector is connecting industrial equipment to the cloud, ensuring data from modern and legacy systems is interoperable and usable to make holistic decisions and predictions, building autonomous systems, and more.
Accelerating Manufacturing Innovation at Scale 2 Open Manufacturing Platform But these challenges can be overcome through the power of open collaboration. Experience tells us that when industry faces a non-differentiating challenge or opportunity, it is a common, collective and collaborative response that results in the most powerful innovation. Efforts like the WC3 that established and maintains standards for the World Wide Web, the IEEE and Linux Foundation networking can’t be underestimated in their ability to address disruption and speed adoption of new technologies. In this eBook, we explore the most critical challenges and opportunities facing manufacturers today, and how the Open Manufacturing Platform can help them collectively solve real-world problems, accelerate innovation, and define the future of manufacturing.