Software Defined Manufacturing: The next generation of efficiency to operations

Software Defined Manufacturing (SDM) is the next generation of efficiency in factories operations but what exactly is it? Who is implementing it? And how can you start? The Manufacturer spoke with Tim Gaus, Smart Manufacturing Business Leader at Deloitte Consulting about it all.

TM: What is the growth potential of the emerging technologies we’re seeing in manufacturing right now?

TG: Emerging technologies have always been part of manufacturing and will continue to be an area of growth. Manufacturers need to be thinking about some key questions when considering implementing new technologies. Is your data clean? Do you have all the things in place to avail yourself of the value presented by them?

Across industry, we are continuing to see heavy investment into the modernisation and the creation of smart factories. This is because there is a lot of value that comes along with them and the advancements of these new technologies.

What is technical debt and how is it holding back growth potential for manufacturers?

A challenge for a lot of our clients in the marketplace is when they have made investments or acquired companies with assets that were purchased over 40 years ago, but never had the time to upgrade them. This is technical debt.

There are better and easier ways on the market now to improve technical debt than a full ‘rip and replace’ of products than there was five years ago. Many older assets can no longer communicate with some of the controllers like vision or smart sensors which have been layered on top of the asset base to collect the information needed. In some cases, the assets can feed back the information without the need to replace the control system within the asset itself.

In the past, to get manufacturing analytics we had to create this massive operational data layer which is not necessarily required. Nowadays, there’s ways to access data in the systems that exist within legacy assets without having to rewire everything along the way.

Technical debt is a constraint, but it’s getting easier to manage by using some of these advanced technologies as well.

What other challenges are manufacturers currently facing with scaling emerging technologies?

One challenge is the human side of it. For the most part, business are not ‘lights out’ manufacturing so there’s always going to be the need for humans as part of the process.

The change that comes along with that, whether it’s the way businesses maintain these advanced systems with the classic convergence of IT and OT, or whether that’s the employees on the shop floor who are using the technologies.

In all cases, there’s shifting the skills that are required to be successful and the kind of the profiles we’re bringing into the manufacturing domain. That is huge positive for the sector in the long run but may be a bit painful along the way.

What is SDM? Why is it important for manufacturers if they continue to invest in new technologies to create smart factories?

Software Defined Manufacturing (SDM) is where we see manufacturing moving. Broadly, it is starting to abstract the physical from the intelligence of software and the way businesses are manging its asset base. In short, it enables manufacturers to change the design and operation of its manufacturing lines without having to change machinery. It also provides a new way to integrate and orchestrate data, systems, and the workforce by utilizing dynamic software systems or platforms to control manufacturing hardware.

It will drive agility, flexibility and allow operations to be more adaptive in an automatic and automated fashion. Software Defined Manufacturing will bring the next generation of efficiency to our operations.

What are the benefits of SDM?

A good colleague of mine says: ‘I like to let my bad ideas die in the virtual world’, and using SDM is a way to get that done by to simulating future outcomes.

There are three value levers that are different than what we have today. The first is that with software defined manufacturing, you have a scientific based root cause analysis which moves past the classic five whys of interrogation and gets down to first principles.

The second is that you’re going to find a stronger way to manage the enterprise knowledge that sits across the systems. Whether that’s human knowledge or data knowledge, it can come together in a more seamless fashion and present itself in a way that’s much more actionable than spreadsheets or anything of that nature.

Then the third piece is the orchestration, which is probably the most interesting and exciting part of system integration today.  With the growth we are seeing in advanced robotics, cobots, semi-humanoid, humanoid, human and AI interaction with AI driven decision processes, the entire orchestration and self-learning of that ecosystem is exciting, and that’s where SDM will bring us to.

How many manufacturers today are taking full advantage of SDM?

SDM is where we’re heading but very few, if any, are already there today. Everyone’s on this journey right now, but by the time we all get there because of technical debt, those who can afford it have the advantage of building a new line or a greenfield facility are embracing these concepts much more quickly. But I would say over time, you’re going to see the entire industry moving towards SDM.

What is the evolution of existing infrastructure?

Due to the evolution of technologies, we are finding things such as virtualised PLCs that could manage the entire production in factories and allow the business to use a software style of delivery. In turn, this provides agile development into the OT world. This is going to be a huge advantage because it allows version control and deployments virtually providing far more flexibility.

We have a client who has a high-speed process, meaning if there is a quality defect, it has a huge downtime impact of around eight hours to recover. For any business this is a catastrophic failure.

Typically, they have always managed this using people and their understanding of what is going on. However, they have now put in an AI model that runs at the edge which performs sub-second detection of the products and can spot any quality impact that is going to occur. It then automatically adjusts the machine rate to avoid the quality defect from continuing to occur.

By placing this technology on the edge, it brings a different set of capabilities than what most production lines would have. To me this is where things are moving too.

How does SDM mitigate long term issues manufacturers face such as supply chain struggles, shipping costs and carbon emission?

With SDM you have a more flexible asset base because of the combination of advanced robotics plus the software management, businesses can have a lot more flexibility.

However, manufacturers will still deal with the inputs and funding methods of manufacturing. With SDM, it is a more automated way to react to that which widens the tolerances businesses have. Businesses can adapt and broaden out its supply base, de-risking activities and acute supply times, but also getting higher quality outcome in the end.

SDM is shifting in both the way we use the assets and the way we use our supply chain to be much more agile and reactive.

What is the importance of strategic partnerships when transitioning to an SDM approach, and why is vital for IT/OT teams to work together to build long-lasting infrastructure?

It is difficult to combine the IT and the OT together and now we are also taking on the engineering element from a capital design perspective as well. You have groups that have always worked together but in very different way, it’s about coming together to think about this new problem.

Unfortunately, you cannot rely on your classic partners if you want to embrace SDM. If you are thinking about bringing in a new ecosystem that would cross domains that haven’t always worked seamlessly together would require a large organisation shift. It requires the business to think differently about how you implement, run and maintain the systems that are in place, which ultimately requires a different set of partners.

It’s a long process but one that is worth starting. Many people hear SDM and get scared, but I believe it’s going to make the human experience of manufacturing much stronger. At its core, it is an enhancement of our human element of manufacturing that will keep it vibrant and thriving into next generation going forward. It is an area to be excited about, not afraid of.

Tim is a principal and the Smart Manufacturing Business Leader with Deloitte Consulting LLP. He leads the manufacturing and operations practice, bringing more than 25 years of supply chain experience with a focus on value chain optimization using emerging technology. He has led multiple supply chain transformations, spanning supply chain strategy, manufacturing optimization, supply chain planning, inventory optimization, operating model design, and operational excellence for domestic and multinational corporations. He has been hands on creating the “Factory of the Future” for his clients using IOT, converging the IT/OT space, and harnessing edge to cloud to drive real time insights.

Prior to joining Deloitte, Tim grew up in the manufacturing space including programming industrial controls for high speed manufacturing, leading large scale engineering programs, and running 24/7 operations for a production facility with over 50 production lines. He earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rochester and his MBA from Kellogg School of Management at North-western University.