Top 5 quotes from the Canadian Manufacturing Industry 4.0 Roundtable
by Sadi Muktadir
The advanced manufacturing roundtable produced many quotable moments that will be captured as part of the in-depth report published as part of PLANT Magazine later this year.
PHOTO: Smart factory, smart devices, Industry 4.0/geralt via Wikimedia Commons
On Wednesday, Aug. 11, 13 top manufacturing executives came together to discuss the results of the 2022 Manufacturing Survey. Industry leaders included business owners, senior leaders at software companies, tech experts and non-profit researchers and advocates for the manufacturing industry.
The 2022 Advanced Manufacturing survey had over 200 respondents answering questions on a number of topics including application, investment, cybersecurity, data collection and usage, organizational logistics and others. The survey strove to understand how far along the Canadian manufacturing industry was in applying Industry 4.0 tools and advancing the digitalization of production and operations.
The full results of the survey will be published in the Sept./Oct. 2022 Issue of PLANT Magazine, and will dive into the year as it was affected by the COVID-19, and looking ahead to a pandemic recovery. The roundtable’s discussion on the results on Aug. 11 however, provided key quotable moments, worth savouring below:
“Companies that are having the most success are ones that are starting to understand the power of running their business through a data and analytics perspective that may not have been there before an IIoT investment.” – Stewart Cramer, Chief Manufacturing Officer of NGen, responding to the increase in companies seeing a benefit from an IIoT investment, specifically with regards to increased analytics functionalities.
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“You won’t get benefits from things you’ve never even tried.” – Peter Coffee, VP of Strategic Research at Salesforce, responding to companies seeing benefits such as an increase in throughput, an increase in the quality of products, and reduced staff requirements.
“There’s a perception that investing in newer technologies basically increases your cybersecurity risk, as opposed to decreasing it. The reality is that if you’re on legacy applications, they’re not being updated and they’re incredibly susceptible. It’s interesting that they would view a cloud upgrade investment as an increased security risk.” – Rory Macleod, Area VP Manufacturing, Automotive, Energy at Salesforce on the number of companies believing an IIoT investment increases their cybersecurity risk.
“Supply chains worldwide have really gone haywire, and I know that there are companies out there saying ‘maybe we can have a competitive advantage if we can marry our supply chains up and down the street with our suppliers and customers, and maybe monetize that and get lower prices’.” – Steve Bassaw, Product Manager at SYSPRO Canada, on the increased number of partnerships and collaborations among competing manufacturers over the last year.
“Companies want to immediately address the front end of their business, so it’s not surprising that technology adoption is growing, and if you want look at increasing your production and distribution, you’ll want to share that information efficiently among your colleagues and partners.” – Peng-Sang Cau, VP of ATS Automation, on the increased number of companies using advanced data sharing capabilities to address their distribution and production problems and increase efficiencies.
These were just some of the most quotable moments from the Advanced Manufacturing Roundtable, and the entire results and its implications for 2022 will be published as part of PLANT Magazine’s Sept./Oct. 2022 issue.
