Persistent labor shortages are a pressing challenge for today’s manufacturers. The industry’s current skills gap is predicted to balloon to 2.1 million unfilled jobs by 2030, which will cost employers an estimated $1 trillion per year. This makes adding automation to increase efficiencies and optimize throughput a top priority across the industry. Smart manufacturing technologies, ranging from digital twins and robots to the use of data analytics to streamline production processes, promise to ease the difficulties associated with the current labor shortage. But automating factory floor operations isn’t simple. It requires massive investments in equipment, data infrastructure and employee training.

Manufacturers may be eager to embrace smart technology innovations, but leaders in smaller firms may struggle to understand where to begin. Meanwhile, larger enterprises are often inhibited by organizational silos or a need to prove short-term return on investment (ROI) when end results may be months, if not years, in the future. Implementing the right data strategy and enterprise architecture can make it possible to overcome these obstacles.

Many manufacturing firms — especially those with complex compliance requirements — create and process large volumes of documents to support their operations. To avoid redundancies and inefficiencies, they need to leverage automation to create a single source of truth and align workflows across the entire organization. This sets the foundation for digital transformation. The right data management strategy successfully melds data across diverse business processes — from sales and inventory management through logistics and quality assurance — into a unified informational backbone. With this data strategy in place, manufacturers will be prepared for success in smart manufacturing.

The National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) defines smart manufacturing as a set of fully integrated, collaborative systems that respond in real time to meet changing demands and conditions in the factory, in the supply network and from customers. Realizing this vision requires harnessing digital technologies to realize greater efficiencies than are possible in traditional production processes. Machines and operators should be sharing information about performance, efficiency and maintenance needs on an ongoing basis to maximize agility and minimize unplanned downtime.

Becoming “smart” means embedding sensors in production equipment to gather data about operational status and performance. But it also requires an infrastructure for sharing, processing and analyzing that data. Taking advantage of the cloud’s near-infinite scalability makes it possible to manage the enormous volumes of data involved.

A mature smart manufacturing ecosystem involves much more data than what’s output by operational technology (OT) systems and sensors, though. It should also incorporate product designs, sales information, logistics tracking (for both finished products and materials), financial results and more. Thinking holistically about all of this data is the secret to successfully advancing your organization’s smart manufacturing maturity.

This playbook will give a three-step roadmap to ready your organization for smart manufacturing. Standardizing document and data management paves the way for digitizing business processes across the organization. This will ultimately allow you to glean value from the smart systems on your factory floor faster and more easily.

Want to learn more? Download the full ebook: 3 Steps to Ready Your Business for Smart Manufacturing.