Drives & Controls July / August 2022

51 www.drivesncontrols.com July/August 2022 TALKING INDUSTRY n Thomas Schardt Vice-president, Digitalisation, Strategy, Innovation, Blue Ocean at Nidec Motor Based in St Louis, Missouri, Thomas’ role is to develop, implement and execute transformational plans delivering top and bottom-line results, and expanding into emerging and mature markets. He has restructured start-ups to expand their market presence and turned around challenged organisations. Line Vaes Marketing Manager, Priority Software Priority specialises in affordable ERP systems for growing companies. Line has an expertise in ERP for the manufacturing industry and, in particular, on how to use ERP to open the door to connectivity, as well as the importance of mobile communications for field service teams and shopfloor personnel. Tony Coghlan Managing Director, Turck Banner Tony Coghlan has been with Turck Banner for more than ten years and was appointed managing director earlier this year. He previously served as an avionics maintenance engineer in the Royal Australian Arm before joining Siemens in the UK in 2004, where he worked until 2007, including four years as spare parts coordinator for Siemens Automation and Drives. Michaël Lefeuvre Product Manager Europe, Red Lion Controls Michaël Lefeuvre has spent more than a decade working in various departments of Red Lion Controls. He has taken part in previous Talking Industry events, covering the business case for digitalisation, and engaging with legacy equipment. Andy Pye Webinar Chair and Consulting Editor DFA Manufacturing Media Andy has edited many leading UK design and manufacturing titles over the past four decades. He is a graduate material engineer and spent five years in engineering consultancy before entering technical publishing in 1980. “Nowadays, customers’expectations change much more often, and at much faster pace,”Schardt continued.“And this is in response to widespread advancements in machine learning and cloud computing. As Line said – and I believe too – you don’t want to be too siloed. Because with all of these individual siloed programs, if you can’t connect them, that’s a big loss of potential. “Michael mentioned the importance of people – if people don't buy in, you have resistance, passive or active. That’s also my experience. You need to be to get the people on board rather quickly and show them the benefits. With digitalisation, people fear they’re going to be replaced. Yet, that doesn’t need to be a major criterion in the cost savings.” Audience poll For the first time, Talking Industry conducted a poll of its Webinar audience. This showed that only 10% of them regarded their organisations as being at an“advanced”stage of digitalisation. Almost half (48%) are at the beginning of the digitalisation journey, 14% haven't started, and the remaining 28% are in the middle of the road. Did these figures surprise the panellists? Tony Coghlan was startled that the figure of those considering themselves to be at the advanced stage was as high as 10%!“People have a lot of data available to them, but they just don’t know how to use it, integrate it or how to put it into a single viable solution.” Michael Lefeuvre agreed, pointing out that before the Covid barrier, most people had not started the journey. He reports an evolution in the adoption of digitisation over the past three years. Lina Vaes concurred. She said that Covid and (in the UK) Brexit have led to an acceleration in the adoption of digital technology. Ten years ago, she said, most ERP systems were sold to big multinational companies. Now, she sees a serious shift to the SME community. Thomas Schardt thought the audience uptake figures were on the high side.“I would say most companies are at a very, very early stage to really use the benefits. Manufacturing is a very traditional environment.” The conversation then moved on to cover more aspects in detail. n Talking Industry is available on demand, not just to those who registered for the live panel discussion. We are nowoffering the discussions in the formof podcasts – broken down conveniently into three segments each about half an hour long – that you can even listen to in the car! The podcasts are available on themajor outlets such as Spotify, iTunes and AppleMusic. https://talkingindustry.podbean.com Talking Industry The Panel Key takeaways n Digitalisation is a journey. To start the journey, keep it simple. Start small, learn, adapt and then scale. n Pain points. There are many smart things you can do, so choose your priorities and address your pain points. Often these turn out to be smart maintenance – but product development, inventory management and supply chains are other areas to look at. n People power. If people don’t accept the new digititised organisation, it will not work. n Open ERP platforms. These make it possible to exchange in both directions – to the ERP, but also to the shopfloor. n Remote monitoring diagnostics. With all the data that is available today, users expect access to more real-time data at a substantially reduced cost.