EPLAN Blog

The megatrends in automation and control are long-term changes and shifts that will end up shaping the direction of industrial technology, processes and products. Certainly, the concept of the Industrial Internet is the defining megatrend of our time, but there are other industrial control technologies being developed that will also have a lasting effect on specific areas within manufacturing companies.

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) offers many advantages to manufacturing and in our collaboration series, we have sought to showcase how this connectivity can enhance relationships in many parts of your business.

In the last of our four-part series, we look at what is arguably the most important collaboration partner you have – your customer.

Satisfying the customer is key in any business. Time and money are the variable factors that can have the most impact on that relationship. Successful manufacturers are always looking for ways to deliver a better product in the most cost effective manner. IIoT takes production into another realm of efficiency that can have valuable bearing on these customer relationships.

When evaluating new ways to implement best practices at your company, asking the right questions can be just as helpful as the answers you come up with. This is important on a number of levels, but most impactful is the effect on the bottom line and faster deliverables.

The business relationships we have, whether they be with vendors, customers, prospects or departments, are a good place to begin looking for what questions to ask. All of these collaborative connecting points are rife for process improvement initiatives.

We broke these manufacturing touch points down into four defined areas, which are:

• Collaboration Between Departments
• Collaboration with Vendors
• Collaboration with Machines
• Collaboration with Customers

Our world of people, places and things is coming together in some interesting and challenging ways. For those in manufacturing, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is connecting people, places and things in ever more functional and innovative ways, and it is changing the fabric of how things get made.

SEE ALSO: 15 Resources to Improve Your Understanding of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)

It is also starting to change expectations. Customers are going to be more demanding as they learn the cost savings and time efficiencies that can be delivered in a Smart Factory. Additionally, this connectivity will also enable a much greater degree of customization, and the capacity to support increasingly smaller batch sizes.

We are living in fast times with design and production going through disruptive changes. The biggest change is the amount of connectivity to people, places and things. This is what the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is all about. Here are 5 ways Big Data will help your business stay competitive.

The rise of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is creating a mind shift in how design and production are done. The product lifecycle of the future will be increasingly oriented towards individualized customer demands and extend from the initial idea through product development, manufacturing, sales, and on to retrofitting and recycling.

The interconnection of machines, processes, people and thedata that fuels it all is creating an integrated environment that means tremendous opportunity for greater efficiencies,cost savings and improved customer service.

There are many components to the production process involving people, machines, software, and hardware. To add to the complexity, there’s a good chance that most of these components are not located in the same place. It’s a multi-faceted environment and holding it all together is data.