**Leonel Leal** Global Director, Advanced Manufacturing Engineering, Whirlpool
Leonel Leal | Global Director in Advanced Manufacturing Engineering, Whirlpool
As in-charge of global strategy for digital transformation, Leonel believes that having an objective clarity about your organizational goals and priorities is the basic necessity while embarking on transformational journeys. Industry 4.0 implementation is one such journey and Leonel says, “assessing where you are in your digital journey and determining where you want to be, is the first step of digitalization program and most organizations do not get it right.” In this interview, Leonel shares his perspectives on the Industry 4.0 vision, its constituents, and benefits in building an efficient PLM system as well as the best practices for implementing Industry 4.0.
Envisioning Industry 4.0
Embarking on an Industry 4.0 journey could mean different things for different manufacturers based on where they plot themselves on the technology adoption curve. For me, the first and foremost priority is building a data driven manufacturing organization with seamless manufacturing operations. With increasing adoption of technologies such as sensors, machine vision, AR, VR, automation, ML, AI, etc. and their integration with the manufacturing equipment and devices, there is humongous volumes of data generated. Add to that, the data flow from consumer behavior analysis, quality, and product design and you get your hands on a rich data reservoir that can be put to multiple use. Hence, developing the ability to rapidly decode and transform this data into actionable insights is critical. It is in this space where we need technological expertise and experience to enable the people on the shop-floor to use this data to their advantage.
The second priority is using data to resolve problems. A lot of organizations assume that problem solving comes free with IoT, but it doesn't. It requires analysis and application of data and connectivity to create custom solutions that map to your specific challenges. It might not be an inherent capability that an organization possesses, it is important to build it over a period of time or acquire it by working with technology partners.
And then the third objective is about being able to radicalize how you deliver your product and process to the end-customer. Industry 4.0 is all about enabling change management and process enhancement. It must help you transform your processes so that you can deliver products faster and beat your competitors to market while delivering better value for the consumer. Ultimately, if you're not able to do that, if your technology and automation does not do that, your investment is futile.
Industry 4.0 Constituents
When you undertake big initiatives, it is the small things that matter. The clarity of thought and process diligence determine the success or the failure of any initiative. For an industry 4.0 program, the two things that constitute the base are data architecture and business visualization. It might sound very simple and basic, but one must understand the key aspects of the business - the data architecture and the data flow at the plant floor level. I see a lot of manufacturers focusing on advanced robotics, advanced AI systems, but they do not have foundational process visualization, and this creates a handicap when it comes to achieving their end-goals/expectations from Industry 4.0 program. Manufacturers must ensure that they have a standard data architecture and a process for collecting and visualizing their data. Otherwise, every time they install a new or latest automation solution, they are only standing on one leg because they are missing the foundational data structure. They get a new robot, but it is not connected to anything, all it is doing is eliminating labor, but it's not giving them the long-term value. Cloud, IoT and Efficient PLM
Today, in order to meet customer expectations, manufacturers have to be really agile, and everything needs to happen faster - design, sales, delivery, feedback capturing and incorporation. The biggest advantage that Industry 4.0 has provided to manufacturers is the ‘true visibility’ throughout the product lifecycle management – design, manufacturing, sales, and after-sales service. The connected systems also provide multiple touchpoints through the PLM to gauge the customer sentiment, provide necessary support and remediation. This has helped us look at new avenues to refine our concurrent engineering function. Currently, concurrent engineering is an offline function, but we are moving towards a model, whereby, all our work streams will be integrated with PLM and we will have a concurrent engineering digital twin model from a manufacturing perspective.
I believe, Cloud technology has played a pivotal role in management of the digital PLM thread. The sheer amount of data that the modern manufacturing floor generates, it is imperative to create a single source of truth model for data processing and dissemination. Cloud provides an infrastructure that enables remote access to multiple stakeholders and is flexible and scalable to meet and manage the spikes and drops in data demand. Despite the inhibitions that raise their heads time and again about the legacy data integration and migration and security challenges, moving to Cloud is a no-brainer for efficient PLM management. Of course, there are concerns and considerations, but then there are equally effective workarounds too, all you need is an able partner to help you with your goals.
Managing Black Swans
One of the biggest learnings from the current situation was that it is of utmost importance to have an understanding of the digital processes within the organization. Not just the digital technology, but the entire digital process to determine and identify potential possibilities for better business outcomes. Today, we know from the crisis that we faced, that if you're not able to have resiliency and agility in your work, you are doomed! That's where we have noticed a strong focus and have adapted well to it by developing the ability to rapidly change. For example, we developed the ability to quickly reconfigure production lines to implement new policies on manufacturing products. We also developed the ability to validate designs fully, virtually, etc. On the supply chain front, visualization has come to the fore as the biggest requirement. Because of this crisis, businesses are thinking, “oh, I need to centralize my supply chain”. But I think we need to go beyond whether it's distributed or centralized. We need to focus on resiliency of the supply chain, because if there is one lesson that this crisis has taught us, it is that the future is uncertain and unpredictable. And it's very volatile. So, what that means is, your supply chain resilience and agility will determine your success and sustainability. Can you bring it to a level to provide you complete transparency to enable or action quick changes and decisions? That is the key question to be considered.
At Whirlpool, our long-term vision helped us sail through the pandemic. The digital transformation initiatives that we had already implemented held us in good stead. Our lines were running around the world and we were able to identify and clear the bottlenecks efficiently. And that's another good example of resiliency – we observed supply chain issues arise in one part of the world, resolved them, learnt from them and then implemented those resolutions in other parts of the world before it even became a problem elsewhere.
Industry 4.0 Implementation Best Practices
I think there are four best practices that organizations need to consider while embarking on their Industry 4.0 implementation journey:
Be human and be sensitive: Implementing Industry 4.0 is all about change management. Throughout the process, you need to have a people element meaning - you need to understand where you are as an organization from a cultural perspective. You need to focus on the processes that will enable your people from a transformation perspective. This is why, we at Whirlpool, focused more on the industrial digital transformation rather than purely Industry 4.0 technologies. The idea was to have better processes for our business as well as people and that I believe is the reason for our success.
One goal at a time: Clarity of thought and focus is the key to the success of your program. It is important to assess where you stand and where you want to go. Only then you must determine how you will use technology to solve your business problem. This process of identifying challenges, building solutions and then standardizing those across your business processes is the most efficient way of implementation.
Determine the KPIs: It is important to determine and set KPIs and metrics to evaluate and course correct your journey. You should be able to measure and roadmap how you're progressing against your set targets. For example, you may find that your industry 4.0 efforts are too focused on purely plucking the low hanging fruit, the labor cost, or maybe you're focused too much on just spending money for integrations, but you're not building better business impact. So, it is important to remember and assess from time to time on how you are performing with reference to your set targets.
Look inwards before you look outwards: Consultants and partners do bring in valuable perspectives. However, it is important to identify the opportunities internally and then leverage the expertise, exposure, and technical acumen of your partner eco-system to cover the blind-spots.
Business Rapid-fire
Evolution or revolution? It is not that simple; it varies from business to business. But there is a very significant need for revolution in a lot of businesses. What we primarily need is an evolution to create a mindset for sparking a revolution.
Strategy or execution? These two are not contradictory virtues, rather they work together. I prefer having a strong strategy that gives you a bias for execution because it helps you learn quickly and do course-corrections to your original strategy. Your strategy should enable fast execution.
One takeaway from the “New Normal”? The “New Normal” has highlighted the significant imbalance in our perception of how our processes should work and how they actually work.
One trend from the “New Normal” that you believe would continue in the future? I believe we will continue leveraging digital tools, with distributed workforce, and will connect virtually more often. I also think, and unfortunately so, that business unpredictability will continue to be a default constant.
2021 will be the year of awakening and breaking down of business silos!
