Start the journey to increase productivity
An increase in productivity is often a differentiator when competing in today’s market. Topics such as ‘produce more with less’ fuels the need for an increase in productivity and also pressures OEMs to rethink ways of working and how new ideas, work methods are introduced.
Several tools are available to enable an increase in productivity but in this article, I will focus on the importance of a defined OEM concept and how a Digital Twin can impact productivity.
The OEM concept
An OEM concept is about more than defining an application structure and a standard way of building machines. It also includes having a clear goal for each discipline and component and where this adds value to your offerings.
In a nutshell, when you choose a component or solution ask why it is important, how it supports meeting the required demands, where it fits into the strategy and how it supports the overall business area. Once these questions are answered we can start defining our choices for the OEM concept and initiate implementation as a standard offering. The concept can then be reused for future machines and projects. The main goal is to focus more on how competitiveness and productiveness can increase rather than finding the best price or functionality for each individual machine or project.
Other areas to increase productivity
Similar behaviour as described above applies when defining an application code structure, remote access to a machine and machine integration for the end-users production. When reviewing the application code structure there are several predefined guidelines an OEM can adapt.
A guideline such as OMAC PackML is a great starting point when defining a concept. The guideline should be vendor-independent and simple to implement to make the complete lifecycle of the machine more productive and effective.
Possible gains by defining an OEM concept:
- Supporting the business strategy on every machine and delivery.
- Saving time testing new features and solutions.
- Mitigating risk and disappointment in the deliveries.
- Enabling fast deployment of machines and projects.
- Securing seamless transfer in all project stages from idea creation to end-user support.
What more?
Adding a Digital Twin into the business provides even more speed for improving productivity. Imagine the increase in productivity achieved when testing scenarios, verifying throughput and testing new design ideas while in the very early design phase of the machine lifecycle.
With a Digital Twin connected to the actual application code the testing of throughput, physical limitations and even the placement of sensors and robots can be done before any component is produced or purchased.
We in ProjectBinder have named this parallel engineering and we believe is a great contributor to productivity. It is also where we experience savings in actual cost and risk – in some applications up to a 20% increase in effectiveness.
We have a lot of experience working and defining strategy within digitalization and welcome you to reach out for dialogue and identify where we can help.