One of the biggest lessons learned through the pandemic is that manufacturing companies and their stakeholders need to step up their digital transformation (DX) efforts. Many struggle to get it right.
PTC, a provider of CAD, PLM, IoT and AR products and services, conducted an industry-wide Digital Transformation Survey to help locate strategic markers that could be universally applied. The data showed that, on average, successful DX programs beat return-on-investment goals by 50%, while programs that miss ROI goals do so by 30%.
In this conversation with Machine Design, Catherine Kniker, chief strategy officer at PTC, outlines a three-pronged strategy that can be applied when resetting the levels. In summary, they are:
- Digital technology must bridge the gaps and reduce friction
- Leadership must redefine boundaries
- Culture change must be driven from the top and bottom
Kniker also provides a rationale for developing digital thread software. A digital thread is the software that ties together all of the physical assets and the activity associated with them. PTC, for example, has software solutions that connect from the moment a product was designed, through the process of manufacturing, all the way to the manufactured product. “The connected process provides details and fidelity so that the people who are servicing those products have the latest information,” Kniker said. The focus, she said, is to “apply technologies that help democratize data, so that manufacturers have a common source of truth.”