By Keith Larson, editor at large
It’s been a busy couple of months here at Smart Industry HQ. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, our Chief Editor Chris McNamara led the successful pivot of our long planned Smart Industry Base Camp conference into Base Camp Digital, a series of extremely well attended webinars highlighting the tools, techniques and strategies that are remaking the digital industrial landscape. Meanwhile, I had the privilege of leading our first Transformational Leadership Awards program, created to identify and honor those individuals and organizations leading the way to Industry 4.0. This year’s winners, chosen from across the global industrial landscape, have successfully envisioned, planned and executed the digital transformation (DX) of one or more aspects of their business through the application of digital technologies.
The Transformational Leadership Award categories and selection criteria are aligned to reflect today’s most critical business transformation challenges. They recognize the importance of executive vision and organizational communication; the ability to build talent, manage change and collaborate across functional siloes; and the successful reinvention of operational processes, customer relationships and business models. The five award categories include two for individuals and three for organizations. Smart Industry congratulates all those who were nominated, as well as the 15 winners selected.
Individual prowess
In our first Transformational Leadership Award category, three senior executives were recognized for demonstrating the vision, innovation, perseverance and growth mindset to inspire and lead their organizations’ transformations. The honorees in the category of DX Visionary include Sudhi Bangalore, Global VP, Industry 4.0, Stanley Black & Decker; Mike Carroll, SVP Innovation, Georgia-Pacific; and, Kevin Seaver, Executive GM Automation & Digital, Cytiva (formerly GE Life Sciences). Three executives with direct responsibility for DX initiatives were recognized for their ability to create teams and lead them to desired goals. The honorees in the category of DX Champion include Matthew Boudjouk, Control & Automation Program Lead, Ecolab; David Gustafson, Executive Director, Process Systems Development, Bridgestone USA; and Hiram J. Sosa, Senior Automation Manager, EMEA, Doosan Bobcat.
Organizational achievement
Three organizations were recognized for their ability to foster productive collaboration across traditional functional siloes resulting in successful DX projects. The organizations honored in the category of IT/OT Teamwork include Caterpillar, Eli Lilly & Company and Georgia-Pacific Three end-user organizations were recognized for the successful execution of DX in one or multiple areas of their business and at scale, ranging from operations to product/service offering to customer service. The end-user organizations honored in the category of DX Trailblazer include Norbord, Pepsico and Pfizer Last but certainly not least, three machine builders, or industrial OEMs, were recognized for the successful leverage of digital technologies to increase value for their customers and generate new revenue streams. The industrial OEMs honored in the category of IIoT Pioneer are: Gencor, Harpak-ULMA and Metso. We’re also pleased to note that our awards program sponsor, Rockwell Automation, invited the Transformational Leadership Award winners to share their perspectives at the DX Strategists Conference, a free-to-attend virtual conference in conjunction with the company’s ROKLive Experience virtual event. You can still learn best practices from a dozen of them, now online. Indeed, both the DX Strategists Conference and Base Camp Digital remain available on-demand. Quick, before work heats up again, take some time out for inspiration and learning while you can.
