Bob Murphy (left) & Scott Feldmann (right)
When it comes to digital transformation in manufacturing, no one has more experience and passion than Bob Murphy. Bob is the Sr. VP of Connected Enterprise Consulting at Rockwell Automation and one of the organization’s leaders that led Rockwell through their own digital transformation across their global manufacturing facilities.
In this episode, Bob links up with Scott Feldmann from Accenture’s Industry X.0 team to share the strategies and stories of a successful enterprise-wide IoT implementation. From aligning the right people, processes, and technologies to expanding a transformation beyond the four walls of the enterprise – creating a ‘digital thread’ that starts with your suppliers and ends with your customers – Scott and Bob share real-world examples while addressing listener questions during one of our recent virtual happy hours.
Make sure to visit ManufacturingHappyHour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.
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3 Quick Things from this Episode
- A successful digital transformation journey requires technology, but process innovation and cultural evolution are even more important.
- The future of digital transformation extends beyond the four walls of the enterprise. This ‘digital thread’ starts with the suppliers and ends with the customer, extending throughout the entire lifecycle of a product.
- Digital transformation needs top-down, C-level sponsorship, but individual sites can help champion bottom-up efforts. You need both.
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Tweetable Quotes
- “When you start really relying on and getting access to data that means something and you start to democratize that across the organization…it changes the company in profound ways.” –Bob Murphy
- “For us, [digital transformation] was P&L transformative. It became the largest productivity play in the history of our company.” –Bob Murphy
Please Scroll Down for Full Show Notes and Recommended Resources from this Episode
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What We Discuss with Bob and Scott
- For an enterprise-wide digital transformation to be success, there must be a compelling reason to change. Transformational change requires people, process, and technology.
- After growing both organically and through acquisitions, Rockwell saw an opportunity to consolidate global manufacturing into one unit. Capacity issues, redundancy, and inconsistencies between legacy systems were macro operational challenges that motivated Rockwell to embark on their Connected Enterprise journey.
- Rockwell formed their first “MES organization” to execute on their digital transformation, a small team of people from both their plant operations (OT) and information technology (IT) organizations.
- Rockwell’s implementation of the Connected Enterprise was “P&L transformative,” resulting in improvements in quality, cash flow, inventory management & accuracy, service & delivery, and direct & indirect labor productivity.
- Scott discusses end-to-end digital transformation and its impact on both the supplier and consumer ends of the supply chain.
- In additional to supply chain and lifecycle optimization, digital transformation impacts the product design process as well. With data available throughout the entire supply chain, leaders will have the information they need to answer these questions: “How can we design our equipment and our product in a way that’s going to be optimized for how it’s made? How is the product going to be serviced by our customers, and how do we pivot when demand changes?”
- While digital transformation required top-down, C-level sponsorship, it’s just as important to take feedback from individual sites. Because people are such an integral part of a successful digital transformation journey, buy-in from champions at all levels of the organization is essential.
Recommended Resources
- Accenture Industry X.0, Accenture’s digital transformation-focused business segment, providing a suite of tested best-practices and solutions for embedding intelligence into client business operations
- Rockwell Automation, the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and information solution that’s bringing the Connected Enterprise to life
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