Find Your Data's Power

By Michael Hart, Director of Product Strategy – Manufacturing & Industrial IoT, Rockwell Automation

Digital transformation is here, and we’re in a world where every size industrial firm must have some form of digitization. Smart manufacturing can be implemented in steps, and is designed to help increase competitiveness and profits — especially considering that you’re facing added challenges such as supply chain disruptions, the COVID-19 pandemic and world events. One of the many benefits of smart manufacturing is the ability to make real-time production decisions to optimize performance.

And asset performance management is what helps achieve this. Asset performance management means integrating your manufacturing data with your enterprise so you can see what’s going on and make decisions right away to improve operations and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). That’s real-time, operational key performance indicators (KPIs) you need to take control of your production performance.

Let’s learn from companies that have used asset performance management on their digital transformation journey.

Why is OEE Important?

First, let’s look at OEE. It’s the gold standard for measuring manufacturing productivity. It identifies the percentage of manufacturing time that’s truly productive. An OEE score of 100% means you’re manufacturing only good parts, as fast as possible, with no stop time.

In the language of OEE, that means 100% quality (only good parts), 100% performance (as fast as possible), and 100% availability (no stop time).

Measuring OEE and the underlying losses provides important insights on how to systematically improve your process. OEE is the single best metric for identifying losses, benchmarking progress, and improving the productivity of manufacturing equipment (i.e., eliminating waste).

Stanley Black & Decker Digital Transformation Boosts Collaboration, Innovation

For this toolmaker, digital transformation is the key to creating a more collaborative and innovative brand. What does the largest toolmaker in the world do when it wants to build something new? That was a central question for Stanley Black & Decker, the 178-year-old creator of some of the most iconic industrial and household tools on the market. The company’s leaders wanted to innovate across all areas of its business, including operations and manufacturing, workforce enablement and supply chain.

As Stanley Black & Decker embarked upon its digital transformation, the company wanted to use Industry 4.0 tools, technology and strategies to help its customers — “those who make the world.” The company also wanted to rethink how it facilitates its own business through technology, how it makes products and how it sells those products though the supply chain.

At the end of its four-year effort, Stanley Black & Decker leadership hopes to create $200-$250 million of value capture with an additional benefit of around $100M in enterprise shared services value.

Starting Its Digital Transformation

Stanley Black & Decker has continually performed at a high level, but found that some processes required intense manual efforts to deliver on expected results. Leaders knew that a digital transformation program could help modify processes to be more data-driven and automated across the entire supply chain, and ultimately improve performance.

“One of the biggest challenges, especially for a traditional industrial manufacturing company, is the issue with what I call lazy, rusty asset syndrome,” says Sudhi Bangalore, vice president, Industry 4.0, Stanley Black & Decker. “We have plants that are really old — tremendously profitable but have a lot of legacy both in terms of practices as well as assets and processes.”

The first step to facilitating digital transformation was to create a smart Connected Enterprise^® to act as a backbone for uncovering and unleashing data. This involved building a holistic set of enterprise applications and control towers to connect 122 factories and 15 distribution centers.

Employee Opportunities Through Data, Skills

A second incentive for a digital transformation program is Stanley Black & Decker’s focus on creating value and opportunity for employees. Through comprehensive up-skilling and re-skilling of 61,000 employees, the company is creating new and more rewarding career paths for employees and increasing retention.

For example, an approach to “elevating work” could mean taking employees trained in assembly and reskilling them to also play a role in quality oversight using data-driven systems and digital tools. Empowering employees with high-value digital skills also prepares them to make more strategic business-driven decisions, leading to new ideas and a better approach to work.  

Building an infrastructure to support remote enablement is also part of the digitalization program. Spurred partly by the pandemic, remote access, monitoring and control will encourage employees to collaborate across factories, regions and countries to make strategic data-driven decisions even while off-site.

Learning on the Go

At about 18 months into a multiyear program, the toolmaker is well on its way to full-scale digital transformation, and still learning in the process. 

“One strategy we put into practice was to leverage people across the organization to help ‘champion’ change,” Bangalore says. “We are combatting skepticism and driving adoption through smart engagement of plant champions who are helping build the bridge between technology and its impact on people.”

Another area that has brought about a lot of learning has been the time frame. The company wants to connect its many sites in months, not years.

“That has been a foundational focus and one that has taken a lot of testing,” Bangalore adds. “And we’re getting to a point where we’re now comfortable in saying we’re ready to actively deploy it at scale in each plant in about a month or two.”

Real-Time KPIs

Asset performance management is a key part of a company’s digital transformation. As demonstrated by Stanley Black and Decker and the other companies highlighted here, integrating manufacturing data with the enterprise to get real-time, operational KPIs help you make decisions to improve operations and OEE.

Like this article? Sign up for e-newsletters from The Journal From Rockwell Automation and Our PartnerNetwork and get articles like this delivered right to your inbox.

^{The Journal From Rockwell Automation and Our PartnerNetwork™ is published by Putman Media, Inc.}