Digital Transformation
AI, Robotics, and LPWANs Offer Digital Transformation Solutions for Water Utilities
Digital transformation and next-generation computing technologies are providing solutions to the massive water and wastewater infrastructure problems that continue to handicap utilities in their ongoing battle to fix leaks, upgrade piping networks and reduce nonrevenue water losses. There are an estimated 240,000 water main breaks per year in the US, wasting over two trillion gallons of treated drinking water. On average, severe water leaks cause $200,000 worth of infrastructure damage per incident. The American Water Works Association estimates that the cost of restoring underground pipes in America will total at least $1 trillion over the next 25 years. ARC has just published our market analysis report for the SCADA for water and wastewater market for 2018, and in this blog, we highlight...
Accelerating the Maintenance 4.0 Revolution with Advanced Machine Learning
Has the Maintenance 4.0 Revolution Slowed? Analysts that cover topics related to Industry 4.0 tend to publish bullish and aggressive forecast of the financial impact of digitalization. Perhaps it is hard to cut through the noise in the analyst / thought leadership community with a moderate or nuanced outlook. Either way, as an observer of Maintenance 4.0, reality is not matching the hype. Many industrial plants are struggling with pedestrian challenges of implementation and are not achieving the growth and profitability that shareholders and senior management may expect. Has the Maintenance 4.0 revolution slowed? The answer is complicated: the momentum has not changed, but there are practical deployment hurdles that must first be addressed. This article identities the factors that are i...
Three Missteps to Avoid When Implementing Digital Transformation Strategy
Implementing digital transformation strategy presents many challenges. These can range from having to manage massive revamping of business and work processes to implementing completely new models for customer engagement. Some challenges are understood but still difficult, such as dealing with legacy technology and infrastructure. Many other challenges simply can’t be foreseen, yet the organization must be prepared to deal with them. This dynamic of modernizing and future-proofing in parallel is difficult, and traditional methods of strategizing are not holding up well. Due to this, many organizations are making missteps as they work through their digital transformation journeys. ARC has identified three common contributors to poor outcomes in digital transformation strategy development an...
4 Things You Should Consider Before Beginning Retail Digital Transformation
Traditional retail has been affected by the rise of digital stores. To remain relevant and competitive, retailers need to find a balance between thinking like digitally native companies and delivering a differentiated in-store experience for a true retail digital transformation. Retailers must adopt a ‘customer first’ strategy along with a digital transformation framework that creates a highly targeted and personalized approach to cater to their customers’ need and buying preferences. With these radical changes in the business, retailers must reimagine their business models, create a digital transformation roadmap, and add innovative capabilities to create differentiation. Retailers need to integrate assets comprising of businesses, divisions, people and technologies to remove the barriers...
Observations from the 2019 ARC Industry Forum
The 2019 ARC Industry Forum was a great success with record attendance by both end users and suppliers. This year’s event, the 23rd, included attendees from throughout the globe discussing digital transformation topics in asset-intensive and smart industries, cities, and municipalities. Digital Transformation Takes Center Stage Forum keynote and session speakers spoke of their experiences and observations about how digital transformation has proven beneficial to their organizations. Many of the topics centered on the development of new strategies by leveraging digital transformation across organizational functions One of the keynote presentations, “Building Digital DNA@Scale” offered by Larry Megan from Praxair, offered a compelling overview of the importance of aligning business strateg...
How Quality Assurance Can Perform Better To Assist in The Digital Transformation?
As there are a lot more ways to innovate technology in digital transformation but how can we sustain innovation aspects with quality. There is the need of the hour to prior focus on each and every technical aspect to assure that the product that flows in the market will be future proof from each and every endpoint. Is performing QA with traditional approaches sufficient to maintain that aspect? or something else we need today. Do share your approach and thoughts!!
Talent and New ways of working in the age of digital transformation
Overview: The whitepaper highlights the difference between doing digital and being digital and that while digital transformation may seem to depend on better algorithms and more advanced hardware, its success rests fundamentally on the innovations of talented people working together Key Highlights Key elements to the new way of working: Bringing a human-centric approach to reimagine the product and service design around the needs of the customer Driving active collaboration among different subject matter experts who can manifest the design into viable products and services A paradigm shift from a world in which the business interacts with customers and IT services business needs It isn’t enough to convert insights rapidly into a product or service. Instead, collaborative teams must be able...
The Future of Basic Process Control Innovation
Basic process control, what we now call level 2 in the Purdue Enterprise Reference Architecture, has been the basis for successful process manufacturing for decades. Industry has witnessed several revolutions in technology, which has produced more accurate, more precise, faster process control leading to better quality and throughput. Innovations have moved from mechanical, to electrical, and on to computational. Currently, the innovation in process control has moved further up the architecture leaving changes at level 2 being mostly incremental. The Open Process Automation Forum (OPAF) has formed to vocalize the need for standardization of level 2. This need doesn’t focus on technical innovation, but lifecycle costs. What, then, can industry expect in the future from this level in th...
Enterprise Digital Transformation – Future Proof Your Organization
Gartner predicts that by 2020, 75% of enterprises will transform to digital — or at least be preparing for the change. Unfortunately, only 30% of those attempts will be successful. As more and more businesses get involved with digitization, it is now essential to have a well-planned digital transformation strategy in place than ever before. Today’s enterprises must maintain reliability to ensure customer experience, uptime, security and compliance, while also seeking agility to enter new markets and remain competitive. With digital technologies affecting all walks of business, companies must transform themselves with digital to become ready for the future. Enterprise digital transformation is a complex process that requires the right mix of business and technology strategy. While most of t...
Next GEN MES: Smart Factory of the Future is Now
MES is the backbone for lower cost, higher quality and faster production for the Smart Factory of the future. It is the future for newer more complex, innovative and more personalized products. More MES functionality will be embedded in devices and equipment so that they govern themselves and take corrective action that helps them to improve efficiencies and avoid unscheduled downtime. MES is the foundation for Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing. Factories will enable real-time visibility globally across the entire value chain. Today’s next gen factories will be completely automated and seamlessly connected and highly collaborative and will host more application data on-premise, on the edge or in the cloud. Many applications will remain on-premise or in edge devices. Highly automat...
