Control Engineering Asia: Cognizant’s Head of Innovation for Manufacturing and Logistics Says Asian Manufacturers Need Newer Paradigms of Productivity, Operational Visibility and Risk Management to Stay Competitive
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“Traditionally, Asia has been known as a cost-effective manufacturing hub thanks to its vast labor pool,” writes Prasad Satyavolu. “While manufacturing and design quality improvements have come a long way, next-generation smart connected products pose new challenges for the entire ecosystem. A combination of legacies in operations, information and product technologies, and manufacturing culture needs to be thoroughly re-evaluated in this changing context.” Excerpts:
“Several Asian manufacturing hubs in areas ranging from automobiles to smart phones and consumer electronics have done well to create world-class products. As the advantage of labor arbitrage recedes, newer paradigms of productivity, operational visibility and risk management are needed for Asian manufacturers to stay competitive. Asia is well-placed to maintain its hub status if the region’s manufacturers quickly move to adopt a digital mind-set. By integrating the best of the physical and digital worlds, and getting rid of their traditional approaches to maintaining competitiveness, Asian manufacturers can fully capture the benefits of digital.
But first, three old ways of thinking must be rooted out. These include being reluctant to invest strategically in digital, fearing automation, and not understanding the importance of securing data effectively.
Manufacturers need to double down on digital and adopt a digital manufacturing strategy. By developing smarter and more agile demand-driven supply chains, manufacturers can hope to generate growth rates well above what they would have enjoyed in the pre-digital era.
Working alongside humans in modern manufacturing, new automated systems will create new and better outcomes. Increasingly, manufacturers need to turn their business inside out in order to adapt and respond to demand volatility and business pressures. Manufacturers need to become digital at their core.
Regardless of the product being made, Asian manufacturers need a robust data security strategy in place to secure their systems. They also need to be resilient and should be able to quickly mitigate the damage.
Industry 4.0 is creating a manufacturing renaissance globally to address these aspects of consumer demand. While manufacturing is still about making things, the future of manufacturing requires analytical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creative problem-solving.
Asian manufacturers must act today or risk becoming obsolete.”
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