What Lies at the Intersection of Manufacturing, Data, Supply Chain Management, and Experience?
An Appetite for Success Wrapped Around a 4.0 Mindset
Innovation and improved customer experience. That’s what it takes to survive and succeed in today’s turbulent, fast-changing times. Although that has long been the case, those two critical components of success are now achieved in ways previously unavailable.
In 2020, in manufacturing and beyond, achieving your new normal now requires embracing a 4.0 mindset. That mindset revolves around the interconnectivity between your people, your processes, your machines, and now data.
Industry 4.0 connects intelligent networks all along a company’s value chain. Data often acquired internally and, at times, externally now plays a critical role in helping to create virtual scenarios to better manage growing complexity by optimizing processes. Data is what fuels AI and ML. That results in vitally important predictive analytics as well as the ability for machines to literally communicate with each other.
Supply chain management, once an afterthought, is now on the minds of industrial and non-industrial companies alike. In a world in which one political event, natural disaster, or pandemic can literally stymie a company’s traditional supply chain in ways previously unthinkable, the aforementioned 4.0 mindset is now a must.
It is fair to say that nothing remains the same as it was just a few short years ago. From purchasing to storing, from quoting to pricing, from inventorying to producing, data, today’s astute manufacturers are doing their homework in advance. With the help of advancing technology, increasingly available and curated data, and a laser focus on what it takes to enhance the customer experience, companies can flourish regardless of the external factors that previously were the equivalent of a death sentence.
So why haven’t all manufacturing companies embraced the 4.0 mindset that sits at the intersection of data, experience, and supply chain management? I’m not quite sure. But one thing I am certain of is that they will a must to delight customers longer.
