Gartner Supply Chain Symposium Recap
The severity of the various supply chain disruptions have contributed a new set of challenges for manufacturers across industries. The impacts of these supply chain predicaments have forced organizations to pivot and adapt to ongoing, unpredictable changes. For leadership to expand their visibility and enhance team collaboration, they must re-calibrate their supply chain.
As we go through the three “must-haves” for transforming your factories, the second is potentially the most transformative because it optimizes and empowers the people making your inventory decisions.
As Women’s History Month comes to an end, we’re taking a moment to honor the female voices of LeanDNA.
In this continued series, we’re talking about the three must-haves of a successful factory management operation. First up: Total visibility into trusted, actionable data (not just siloed data that tells you where things are struggling).
Almost 36 percent of supply chain leaders during our recent factory operations webinar with IndustryWeek said digital transformation in the smart factory means “standardizing and automating manual processes.” Frankly, I couldn’t agree more.
Whether it’s upgrading the factory floor with robotic assembly technology, providing wearable information technology to workers, or proactively predicting inventory needs with artificial intelligence solutions—standardization and automation are a top priority.
While most companies have made significant investments in modernizing and automating the factory floor, not many people are talking about the other part—you may call it the back office, or factory management, or factory operations. We call it the secret to unlocking a massive competitive advantage.
We’ve been talking a lot about digital transformation for smart factories—specifically optimizing your factory management processes to make sure inventory is in the right place at the right time for your teams. In our dialogues with industry experts and innovators—as recently as last week in an IndustryWeek webinar featuring our team and Mike Louderback, VP of Operational Excellence at Morgan Advanced Materials—we’ve heard a lot of excellent questions about this transformation.
Here are the most common management inquiries for smart factories and subsequent answers from the pros.
