As CTO of global operations with Stanley Black & Decker, he manages massive digitalization programs on a global scale. But as he is quick to note, the tactics, strategies and tools he employs at his behemoth of an enterprise can be replicated at any size shop.
Digital transformation isn’t just for the big guys. You just have to know how to do it properly.
During his Base Camp Digital webinar, Sudhi shared some of the lessons he will impart. Take a look…
Smart Industry: Can tools/techniques used by big enterprises like yours really be implemented by small manufacturers?
Sudhi: Absolutely. There are several examples where solutions have become more cost-effective and attractive from a “time to deploy” standpoint, because these innovative solutions have been built by both small and large companies coming together.
There are opportunities to leverage what’s already out there to build solutions that truly align with your business needs.
Example #1: Using standards that are well defined, will help bring flexibility and alignment to your business. Unfortunately most small-to-medium companies think that it’s hard to customize to one’s business needs. I am here to dispel that myth.
Example #2: Not all analytical solutions are laborious, time-consuming and tedious. Video and acoustic-based analytics have really evolved lately. Tremendous progress has been made in the last 6-9 months. The whole idea here is to leverage the data coming out of fairly low-cost cameras and devices, to not only help with analytics, but productivity, scrap improvement and safety as well.
So this is another example where a company can really hit the ground running, just starting with video/image based analytics, including maybe acoustic analytics, and then move onto other proven traditional techniques such as predictive maintenance, etc.
Smart Industry: Why are standards critical to rolling out transformative efforts? What standards are we talking about?
Sudhi: Standards are critical because they allow longevity of the solutions that you are building. If you build solutions without them, there is a good chance they will not integrate into other technologies that you will deploy in the near future. Another reason why standards are critical…if deployed properly, they give you flexibility One example is your data ecosystem. It has to be set up in a standard way so that you maximize the benefits. Fortunately, more standards have been created and more protocols developed, such as OPCUA, MQTT, microservices architecture, etc. These enable you to tap into the data-collection systems of different devices, which makes it a lot easier to extract.
Smart Industry: What most excites you about this digital, data-driven era of industry?
Sudhi: What most excites me is the fact that, if leveraged properly, these tools not only help companies to become cost effective and customer centric and, therefore, more successful in business. They also provide the opportunity to put people at the center. Now more than ever, we can enable employees with new ways of working and make manufacturing a very attractive industry for the younger generation.
