As we continue into the Fourth Industrial Revolution, manufacturers must continue to innovate in order to remain relevant and successful. Retailers have become more demanding in order to meet consumer needs which means that manufacturers that supply equipment are tasked with designing a variety of products at a lower cost.
Innovation in manufacturing must be built into the overall process, instead of being treated as its own separate process. Dedicated time and budget are needed to promote innovative thinking throughout the whole machine design and product development process.
To build innovation into the process, the following is needed:
Top Level Support
Decision makers in a manufacturing environment don’t always have shop floor experience. They might have a finance or marketing background, instead, and focus more on initial short-term price when they make decisions, rather than what an innovative process will yield in the future. This often results in a lack of quality. Support from the C-suite is imperative in order to execute a truly innovative machine design and product development process.
Modern Apps and Software
To truly innovate today, a factory must be “connected.” Access to real-time production data allows those responsible for machine design and product development to make decisions based on facts and trends, rather than gut instincts. Processes can be monitored remotely, allowing more people, perhaps with unique specialized skills, to take part in the conversation and to troubleshoot if needed. This speeds up the process and makes it more efficient, allowing new products to get to market quicker.
Continuous Improvement
A process focused on innovation never ends. The end user is always going to have increasing demands for products which is why one innovative product leads to the next which leads to the one after that. It’s never “done.” The company needs to be dedicated to finding improvements and making advancements.
Creativity and an Open Mind
Building innovation into the overall process means that time is allowed for “outside the box” thinking. As one new product is in the process of getting up and running, it could spark ideas about what else it could do or what it would mean if certain tweaks were made. New ideas can pop up at any time, and should be embraced, throughout the process, from design phases all the way through to early operations.
Innovative thinking shouldn’t happen only at the onset of a project. It needs to be built into the entire process, since it’s often throughout the process that the best ideas come to light.