Industrial Sustainability: Moving Sustainability Forward In Manufacturing

whitePaper | August 22, 2022

The coronavirus pandemic that unfolded in 2020 and which is still yet to be fully under control, has had dramatic impacts in every aspect of our daily lives, from the way we work to the way we interact socially and to how organizations are structured. Some of its impacts are yet to be fully grasped, as several new studies provide further evidence of significant changes, ranging from its impact on our health to the way we learn and to how companies have been required to redefine their work model.

whitePaper | June 3, 2022

Instantly appears in many people’s minds is of a production plant run entirely by robots. But robotics is only part of the overall technology stack that will enable today’s factories meet the demands of tomorrow’s markets. In just a few decades, industrial manufacturing has changed dramatically in the continuous effort to keep pace with ever increasing market demands. Basically, this transition has occurred in three distinct phases, each with its own pathway to success.

whitePaper | April 13, 2021

The Manufacturing Execution System (MES) is the channel of information from the shop floor to the top floor in a manufacturing organization. An Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP) is often not enough to understand what is actually happening in the factory.

whitePaper | September 30, 2022

Until 2020, progress towards digital transformation for most manufacturers was slow. But the urgency for manufacturers to make successful digital transformations escalated during the first 8-12 months of the global pandemic. As COVID-19 reshaped consumer buying behaviors, the pace jumped from a crawl to a sprint: According to one study, 85% of organizations accelerated their digital transformation initiatives in 2020.[1] Some industry observers believe we witnessed 6.5 years of digital progress in the last eight months of 2020 alone.[2] The pandemic was largely responsible for worldwide supply chain disruptions that slowed down goods production and delivery. As a result, manufacturers justifiably focused on managing and fixing the supply chain problems first. But as the pandemic continued, it became clear that the supply chain issues were a symptom of something deeper than the short-term disruptions.

whitePaper | May 23, 2022

Cost-effective digital manufacturing solutions are needed to keep factories and supply chains running smoothly while producing high-quality products–whether delivered by OEM, parts or assembly supplier, contract manufacturer, or manufacturing services supplier. IBM can help you cocreate a roadmap to a custom solution with a focus on leveraging existing OT investments,improving key metrics, exploiting digital tools, and using the right talent. We help you set your direction based on a proven Industry 4.0 reference architecture and industry standards, achieve scale by consistently deploying advanced shop floor technologies on an open platform, and unleash optimum value by selecting manufacturingprocess use cases to address immediate needs.

whitePaper | September 4, 2022

It’s the clarion call of today’s marketplace and the prime directive for executives in any business that designs or produces physical goods, no matter how simple or sophisticated. Fortunately, every product can be improved and made at less cost. But how quickly a company can satisfy such demands – before, say, its competitors do, or the market moves on to something new – is largely a function of the product-development cycle. Shorten that cycle, and you can improve the numbers across the board, from customer satisfaction to market share to profitability. However, one seemingly intractable barrier to faster product development lies within the traditional design process. That process starts with identifying a need in the market or within one’s organization; it ends with the manufacture of a finished product, whether a massive, complex assembly or one tiny part. In between are multiple iterations of designs and tests: engineers sketch out a solution, prototype and test it (or run a computerized simulation), and then go back to the design to address any shortcomings. But trade-offs complicate matters each time the cycle repeats: make a part lighter and it’s likely to become weaker, make it stronger and it will probably cost more, and so on. A workable, if not optimal, solution can usually be found. However, finding it often takes longer than the product-development timeline or budget will allow.