The modern business environment is being reshaped by a wave of disruptions that are testing the limits of traditional supply chains and consumer expectations. This has brought new challenges to the food and beverage manufacturing segment. Supply chain disruptions, fluctuating costs and new consumer purchasing habits have fueled a dramatic need for increased agility and resilience.
According to a recent market outlook by Statista, e-commerce accounted for over 17% of retail sales worldwide, showing a year-on-year increase from the pre-pandemic 2019 figure of 12%. It is projected that by 2029, the online segment will make up over 21% of total global retail sales, demonstrating a persistent trend towards online purchases. Consumers now demand the convenience of home-ordering and faster delivery, thereby requiring faster production cycles. They are also now expecting more ‘transparency’ in terms of delivery time, ‘transparency’ in terms origin of products and raw materials, as well as ‘transparency’ in disclosing the environmental impact of sourcing, manufacturing and distributing the products.
To remain agile and resilient in the face of this dramatic demand and unforeseen disruptions, companies need to adopt the digital transformation journey. The World Economic Forum highlighted that manufacturers that leverage digital technologies to transform their operations have successfully reduced costs by 5-30%, and increased productivity by 5-40%. Those who fail to embrace digital technology, will likely lose their competitive edge.
Manufacturers continue to face Supply Chain Disruptions
Manufacturers now not only face disruptions in terms of raw material supply, but they also face workforce-related disruptions which led to major obstacles to their ability in running their plants at full capacity. In addition, workforce dynamics, including a wave of retirement, as well as shortage of skilled workers have exacerbated the situation.
At the other end of manufacturing, they also face higher demands for sustainability in terms of energy emissions, water and waste reduction.
As such, the digital transformation of manufacturing operations is a critical foundation to deliver the much-needed operational efficiency and flexibility improvements in this era of uncertainty. In fact, according to a recent survey by Deloitte, 85% of manufacturers surveyed believe their smart manufacturing initiatives will transform how products are made, improve agility and attract manufacturing talent. To achieve this, manufacturers should incorporate robust digital platforms and toolsets to optimize their manufacturing value chain by:
- Enabling cross-functional supply chain visibility and collaboration to create production plans which are feasible to execute.
- Deploying advanced production planning and scheduling methods to optimize plant schedules for throughput and on-time delivery and to adapt to more frequent change.
- Digitizing and standardize best practices, key performance indicators (KPIs), and reporting across their distributed network of plants.
- Leveraging operational data with Artificial Intelligence-infused (AI) predictive and prescriptive analytics for improved productivity, asset reliability, and eco-efficient optimization.
- Creating a digital thread that contextualizes information across the supply chain to provide the visibility, transparency, and traceability consumers and regulators demand.
- Establishing new KPIs to measure and improve the speed and agility of their supply chains.
In addition, with the impending shortage of skilled workers, digital tools ensure that institutional knowledge can be retained. By digitalizing work processes, manufacturers can connect workers to instructions and easily collect data. Resolutions to previous problems are also stored, which can be valuable for future training and building a more skilled workforce.
The need for multi-site digital transformation strategies
Large manufacturers with multiple plants require industry- specific digital strategies that allow them to leverage synergies and facilitate accelerated deployment across their various sites. To be successful, this requires a corporate, centralized ‘Center of Excellence’ approach to identify the best practices and supporting technologies, which can then be standardized and rolled out in parallel across multiple sites.
Digital twin technology provides real-time situational awareness and lays the data foundation for more advanced capabilities, like AI, machine learning, and predictive quality, process and asset performance. By abstracting production sites into a standardized digital twin of the plant, manufacturers can transform operations consistently across many sites with varying practices for similar operational activities.
Digital twins bolster agility by enabling complete visibility into plant operations, resources, and assets and creating a much-needed dimension of what the plant network is capable of delivering. The ability to run “what if” scenarios mean manufacturers can determine the best outcomes virtually, saving time and money.
Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) continue to play a central role in this. These systems become part of a plant’s living digital twin, which applications can use to blend human work tasks with automated activity in the execution of standardized processes. Digital twins enable a transformation not only in how work is performed but also in how workers collaborate.
One major solution to digital transformation – AVEVA™
Manufacturing Execution System Comprehensive digital execution solutions, such as the AVEVA Manufacturing Execution System (MES), are vital for aligning people, equipment, and operational processes with advanced digital technologies for efficient and compliant work execution, data capturing, and continuous improvement.
As operational efficiency improves, so too does an operation’s ability to be flexible and change course swiftly in the face of disruption, while at the same time minimises costs.
Danone Specialised Nutrition has adopted AVEVA’s MES as part of its digital manufacturing journey as it seeks to increase efficiency and flexibility. With the help of AVEVA, the Danone team developed a core model/template that provides 20 standard MES functions for deployment across its manufacturing sites. By using AVEVA’s scalable solutions, the standardised model/template was easy to roll out across Danone’s 25 remaining sites.
To find out more on AVEVA Manufacturing Execution System (MES), contact AVEVA experts at www.aveva.com/en/contact
The above editorial is contributed by
Michael Schwarz,
Product Marketing Senior Manager
MES/Operations Execution Software, AVEVA
For more information, click on: AVEVA Software Singapore Pte Ltd
