In September, Geoffrey Bennett shares with the Smart Industry 2017 conference how GKN Driveline is bringing traceability together across company functions. Today the enterprise-applications business analyst offers his perspective on sharing live data, updating legacy
systems and convincing the workforce to commit to change. Take a look…
Smart Industry: What most excites you about how digital transformation is changing the auto industry?
Geoffrey: The power of sharing. As a global supplier in the auto industry, being able to instantly share performance data and trends is key. Having data readily accessible when you need it makes the business more responsive to the demands of the customer.
Smart Industry: What unique challenges / opportunities are present in the auto industry with the new digital tools at hand?
Geoffrey: Change isn’t always easy. In most cases we are retrofitting new technology into legacy production equipment. Building out a platform with a cell from the ground up is not always the norm. Along with that comes the human factor--getting people who have done their jobs for years without technology to embrace change. You have to show them how technology will impact their daily jobs to get their buy-in.
Geoffrey: Our products aren’t made entirely in one place. In fact, most things nowadays go through multiple facilities before completion. The traceability across those steps needs to be intelligently linked. If an issue arises, we need to be able to know everything about each of the components that went into making that part. New technologies come together in ways that enable us to achieve that goal. Things like QR codes, laser marking, RFID and cloud storage all working together seamlessly to track the life of a product.
Smart Industry: How to you plan to bolster your analytical approach with this new access to data?
Geoffrey: We plan to bolster our analytical approach by taking advantage of the access to real-time data. This will allow us to make decisions based on current data versus relying on reports compiled on a weekly or monthly basis. We’ll be able to identify trends more quickly. In turn, this enables us to make improvements to our processes and respond to market needs.
