Earlier this year, leaders from consumer-packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) joined a meeting at Emerson’s Austin area facility. The meeting was co-hosted by the PMMI’s OpX Leadership Network and Industry Relations Committee. The goal was to identify a path forward to create a digital transformation roadmap for the members of the PMMI trade organization.
Emerson’s Marcus Parsons alerted me to an AutomationWorld article, CPG Manufacturers and OEMs Collaborate on Digital Transformation, provides an excellent summary of this meeting. Marcus noted that this meeting was a perfect opportunity to showcase the potential for digital transformation to maximize production, increase reliability, ensure quality and improve sustainability and discuss how to begin industry-wide implementation.
I’ll recap a few points and invite you to read the article for the rest.
What is holding CPG manufacturers back from fully embracing digital transformation initiatives?
The reasons why many industrial companies remain hesitant about making the digital transformation are numerous. From cybersecurity, cost concerns, intellectual property protection, and workforce readiness to simply not knowing the best way to start, there’s no shortage of reasons why companies are not exactly rushing headlong into the fourth industrial revolution.
Emerson Automation Solutions chief technology officer, Peter Zornio, opened the meeting:
…by stressing that most industrial companies are still “figuring all this out” and that companies not at the forefront of this change are not necessarily losing ground, as many industry consultants imply.
He explained:
“This is not the first time industry has undergone a digital transformation… Plants are full of digital, automated technologies. What’s happening now is that all these other processes—such as bringing safety to the point of zero injuries or accidents, optimizing production to market conditions, driving reliability to the point that there are no unplanned downtimes, reducing emissions and increasing energy efficiencies, automating routine tasks to empower the workforce to create more value, embedding collaboration in the work process culture, and supporting business decisions with analytics—have not previously been automated. The big opportunity for today’s digital transformation is closing the loop between all these yet-to-be-automated areas.”
Peter highlighted the key technology enablers for digital transformation, which include:
…sensing, analytics, cloud and edge computing, cybersecurity, mobility, and workflow collaboration—most all of which lie at the heart of industry’s concerns about digitization.
Read the article to see the five priorities around the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) for the CPG manufacturers and the five priorities for the OEMs as well as the next steps to drive this initiative forward.
Visit the Packaging and Food & Beverage sections on Emerson.com for more on the technologies and solutions to drive improved business performance for CPG manufacturers. You can also connect and interact with other CPG industry experts in the Food & Beverage group in the Emerson Exchange 365 community.
