October 2019

| 22 | October 2019 www.smartmachinesandfactories.com | SOLUTIONS | Industry 4.0 promises to deliver a broad range of business benefits, but the majority of industrial companies are still at the digital starting gates and few can claim to have created real business value. But, by adopting robust, scalable and flexible IoT platforms, manufacturing enterprises can build a solid business case for the digital transition and secure the vital first breakthroughs on a journey to the digital world. Dave Pickles, managing director, Capula Ltd, reports. R ecognising the potential benefits associated with the advent of new digital technologies, many manufacturing companies are now accelerating their efforts to exploit the tremendous surge of new tools and the smarter digital approaches that are available to today’s businesses. Technologies like the industrial internet of things, advanced analytics and virtual and augmented reality are already transforming enterprises. However, while many companies recognise the potential for value creation, far fewer are effectively realising that value for company benefit. A significant barrier to the uptake of Industry 4.0 approaches is the belief that the risks associated with adopting this new model will outweigh any potential benefits. Typically, manufacturing and industrial plant assets represent a significant long-term investment and owners and operators are inevitably concerned that introducing new technologies could prove costly. For instance, manufacturers may be afraid that adopting digital technologies could make existing assets obsolete or could perhaps even have adverse impacts on reliability. Given the dramatically accelerated trajectory to maturity though, today the bulk of Industry 4.0 technologies represent a robust, well-proven and secure tool kit. Digital technologies are thus already available for implementation, working alongside existing instrumentation, control (I&C) and other IT systems. Nonetheless, there are a number of fallacies surrounding the adoption of new digital technologies that go some way to explaining the slow uptake. Myth busting Industry 4.0 One common perception is that the move towards an Building a solid business case for the digital transition