Bridging the IIoT Technology Gap

One of the largest Industry 4.0 roadblocks we often observe rests in addressing the gap in knowledge and objectives that exists between the different levels in manufacturing organizations.

CEOs are usually well intended in adopting Industry 4.0 technologies, but they are not comfortable with the technology conversation, so they delegate down the chain to someone who is. The people deeply involved in IT, or considering advanced technologies, are usually far more technology focused than they are day-to-day manufacturing focused and sit several levels away from the CEO with different responsibilities and objectives that don’t necessarily tie directly to the organizational vision or overall performance.

FreePoint has spent the last few months analyzing this challenge we have developed a Value-To-Vision process and Self Assessment Tool with the help of some industry partners that can address ways to close the gap and assess your IoT readiness. Part of that process was to discuss with manufacturers and understand the roles and objectives of each organization and we have boiled those conversations into the persona chart (Pictured above). There are a few key take aways:

• Individuals on the left side of the persona chart have very short term objectives – this hour, this shift, etc. They are more tactile, non-financial and have very specific measurements – how many strokes, how many parts, how many minutes…
• The right side have long term and ‘fuzzy’ objectives (sustainability, keeping work in one plant or another, improving overall competitive position), which are usually financial.
• In the middle, you have the people tasked with developing and deploying a technology adoption project. They are often disconnected from the vision (CEO) by several layers, and equally disconnected from the people doing the actual work.
• Sometimes there may be a CTO in the picture, but they are generally not in the value-to-vision stream. Some companies have CIO’s (Chief Information Officers), and because their output (data, information) is consumed by the CFO and CEO, they are more likely to be in the value-to-vision stream.
• The right side of the chart is the vision side. The left side is where value is actually created day-to-day.

Over the next few months, we will be sharing more information in conjunction with our industry partners. If you would like to have a preliminary conversation on closing the technology gap or review our self assessment tool, please reach out to us.