In the fast-paced landscape of manufacturing and durable goods industries, seamless supply chain operations have never been more critical. Manufacturers face challenges in timely product delivery, supplier reliability, and customer satisfaction while striving to enhance operational efficiency in a cost-sensitive environment. Addressing these complexities is the concept of control tower integration.
Global IT research and advisory firm Info-Tech Research Group (Info-Tech) has released a new resource, providing insights into how the integration of control tower systems could address these complexities and reshape the manufacturing industry.
The industry blueprint, Harmonizing Complexity: Control Tower Integration, provides manufacturing IT leaders with guidance on harnessing exponential technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and the Internet of Things (IoT). By leveraging emerging technologies, organisations can access timely data, crucial for driving operational excellence and ensuring customer and employee satisfaction.
The research suggests that manufacturers can face significant challenges in integrating control towers, primarily due to ineffective collaboration between IT and operational technology (OT). Many of these organisations operate in silos, leading to poor communication and hampering integration efforts. The industry also struggles with the complexities of legacy systems and intricate supply chain operations that involve multiple suppliers, manufacturers and distribution networks. Furthermore, a shortage of skilled specialists capable of effectively managing and operating a modern control tower exacerbates these challenges.
Info-Tech’s blueprint also highlights several control tower integration service capabilities designed to tackle the key challenges facing the manufacturing industry. These capabilities can facilitate real-time information sharing among customers and businesses to enable more efficient operations and better decision-making, and include:
- Control Center: Streamlines operations through orchestration, visualisation and collaboration.
- Communication Services: Enables real-time information sharing via collaboration, sensing, analysis, planning and response.
- Decision Management Services: Optimises demand, inventory and supply management decision-making.
- Integration Services: Facilitates seamless data exchange through protocols, sensing and integration.
- Advanced Intelligence: Leverages AI, ML and deep learning for actionable insights.
Implementing a supply chain control tower is not just a strategic advantage but a fundamental necessity for sustainable growth. Info-Tech concludes that by providing real-time insights and enabling proactive decision-making, control towers can help businesses adapt swiftly to market changes, optimise operations and maintain high levels of customer satisfaction.
“The manufacturing industry faces a formidable challenge in meeting customer demands characterised by increased technology adoption, shorter lead times, greater transparency requirements, and decreased tolerance,” says Kevin Tucker, Advisory Practice Lead at Info-Tech. “The technology ecosystems that manufacturing businesses can adopt are drastically changing, and the new solutions that they are adopting call for significantly different skill sets.”
For more information, read the full report here.
Source: InfoTech
