A new report from UK limited liability partnership, KPMG, states that despite investment from the majority of manufacturers into industry 4.0 few have achieved the scale and integration required to drive enterprise value.
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“UK manufacturers have shown more enthusiasm than preparedness for industry 4.0, and our latest report, ‘Beyond the hype: Separating ambition from reality in industry 4.0’, reflects that this is a global trend,” explained Stephen Cooper, head of industrial manufacturing at KPMG UK. “In February, we released our Rethink Manufacturing report, which showed that the majority (56%) of UK manufacturers agree that industry 4.0 represents an unprecedented opportunity to revitalise manufacturing across the country. However, they are far less sure about how it will affect their business and whether they have a coherent strategy and the right talent and skills to capitalise on it.”
Within the report, a number of benchmarking exercises were included that demonstrated a number of companies only had a low-to-medium level of maturity in key areas, such as demand-driven supply chain and machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. However, better maturity was seen in areas such as cloud, robotics, Big Data, cybersecurity and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies.
“Gaining experience with industry 4.0 technologies is certainly important,” added Alec McCullie, associate director and UK lead for industry 4.0 at KPMG. “But the real value of industry 4.0 comes, not from the component technologies or capabilities, but rather through smarter processes that integrate automation, data, analytics, manufacturing and products in a way that delivers unique competitive advantages and unlocks new business and operating models. And this cannot be accomplished without achieving larger scale, greater integration across functions and a willingness to disrupt the status quo.”
Rather than focusing on investment and reported returns, KPMG’s report examined how companies are driving value from industry 4.0 investments and preparing to take advantage of future opportunities. Additionally, the report identifies areas where manufacturers could be taking a more integrated and strategic approach to industry 4.0 adoption.
“There are a number of key focus areas that are creating challenges for manufacturing executives across the value chain,” McCullie said. “Particularly as they work to transform their organisations for the industry 4.0 environment. This includes issues such as developing a robust, goals-focused strategy, scaling up the programmes, managing the impacts across functional areas, integrating with products and improving the value network. Success in industry 4.0 is not about how much you invest; the winners will not be those with the deepest pockets. To win in tomorrow’s competitive and rapidly changing environment, manufacturers need to start being bolder in their vision, strategies and actions if they are to succeed.”
