Developing a strong and pragmatic digital transformation plan

Digital transformation offers many benefits for manufacturers, but getting started remains a roadblock. Like Industry 4.0, the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) or even starting an automation plan, the first step is the hardest. Once that’s accomplished, though, potential roadblocks remain and getting buy-in from all levels is critical.

Amit Patel, global director of digital transformation at Emerson, said in a video interview the initial challenges companies face are a mix of both lack of knowledge and where to start, but also several other barriers, such as the right governance and culture. 

He suggested companies can off on the right foot by focusing on four aspects:

• Focus on set of guiding principles

• People and talent

• Infrastructure and governance

• Technology.

Patel said the most important areas of focus are the ones that can be measured and are tied to either financial and productivity improvement or have some combination of the two. He added it’s good to have several use cases running at the same time to better determine return on investment (ROI).

During the scaling process, Patel said achieving success and impact at scale requires a clear, phased rollout approach that is also pragmatic and realistic.

Patel described digital transformation as an ongoing journey that will continue evolving along with tools and technologies. And as they do so, costs will get lower and the barrier of adopting and scaling digital transformation tools will become lower.

ONLINE

See an additional article from Patel and video coverage from Hannover Messe 2023 linked below.

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