PWE October 2021

12 | Plant & Works Engineering www.pwemag.co.uk October 2021 Insight – Talking Industry #7 Review A s always, the discussion is guided by live questions from attendees, but let’s start with a disclaimer and define digitisation and digitalisation. Digitisation just means converting something into a digital format and usually refers to encoding data or documents. Digitalisation means converting business processes to use digital technologies, as opposed to analogue or offline systems. The scene was set by Prof Sam Turner. As a CTO of the High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult, a network of manufacturing innovation centres in the UK. HVM Catapult has seven centres, around 4000 people and over £1 billion of assets. “There are factory-like facilities, working in manufacturing innovation, and a network of test beds where we can bring in technology, test it and demonstrate the risks and benefits. And digitalisation is a huge part of that,” explained Prof Turner. He continued: “At the design stage, how can we use digital tools at the outset to optimise the digital thread? This starts a thought process about breaking down barriers between design and manufacturing and in-service performance. So, if we can gather data from manufacturing performance or in-service performance and relate it back to design, we can start to enhance the productivity of the assets we’re designing.” Prof Turner referred to the need to build net- zero supply chains, another area where many manufacturers are struggling with where to start. “There is a huge role for digital tools in capturing ‘single-source-of-truth’ data around, for example, the embodied emissions in materials coming into manufacturing via the supply chain and how to report factory emissions. “ Finally, he said, while robotics, AI and machine learning techniques are the means, the crucial starting point is how we create clean data and start to derive value from it. Roadmaps One key area is creating a digitalisation roadmap. Bill Killick (HMS Industrial Networks) emphasised that we are not talking digital improvement, but a total digital transformation - perhaps the key concept is not digital at all, but a business transformation using digital building blocks. Because his company does protocol-to- protocol conversions and dashboarding data into the cloud, his experience is dealing with mid-level engineers and process designers. “Although there are countless examples of massive success led by senior management, the point at which a company will adopt digital transformation is when their awareness of the benefits exceeds the pain of going through the process! It is also valuable to benchmark yourself with your competitors and with other industry sectors. “I don’t have top-level strategic discussions with business leaders. In my world at the mid- level, many have the digital vision, but they can’t affect the total chain. Instead, they try to anticipate what the business strategy will be coming down from the top and solve an immediate problem using a digital building block that they know will comply with the business transformation strategy once it happens!” Which is where the digital roadmap comes in. Our second Sam T is Sam Thiara (MCS Control Systems). MCS builds control systems, control panels and motor control centres for virtually every industry sector. To encourage the adoption of a company-wide digital vision, he advocates the use of a roadmap. “We have identified in our own manufacturing business the need to improve our digitalisation processes and we now look to support our customers in that journey,” he said. “In a manufacturing business, some digital transformation initiatives don’t always work that well, because business executives do not really know what to do, or which steps to take first.” “If followed correctly, a roadmap will provide benefits beyond just fixing things that might solve a small problem, but which do not actually transform the whole business,” Sam Thiara explained. He is available for discussions and consultancy on how to construct a viable digital roadmap. Keith Atkinson (Weidmuller) agreed: “Weidmuller has found that its relationship with customers has evolved from being a supplier of connectors to a consultancy on digitalisation. Within this consultative approach, the journey starts with defining a digital workflow, starting with from digitisation of the initial design process. A key aspect is how to bridge the worlds of operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT).” “You have to have a strategy for both top- down and bottom-up data flow,” he said. “The Digital Transformation process highlights need for data strategy The seventh Talking Industry discussion attempted to explore what could be done to further evangelise the benefits of digitally transformative concepts to improve efficiency and competitive perspective and to define more clearly concepts such as IIoT, Industry 4.0 Smart Factory, Digital Twins, Machine Learning, Analytics and AI. Andy Pye provides this summary review. Talking Industry