Manufacturing is a critical industry and is considered the heart of any thriving economy. However, competing as a manufacturer in this ever-growing global market is not that easy. Unsurprisingly, the current economic environment pushes your business to create a more digital workforce.
Thus, it is crucial to be strategic in adopting new processes and implementing new technologies that are agile as much as possible to solve Manufacturing IT challenges and maintain market share.
However, implementing technologies like data-driven operations, digitization, and advanced automation may cause arising in new demands, and they could permanently cause your business to face a unique set of IT challenges.
In this article, we will take you through 5 of the most critical Manufacturing IT challenges and present to you how Modern Technology helps Manufacturing industries tackle them.
Cyber threats are the first and most prominent Manufacturing IT Challenge your business may face. Cyber-attacks are rushing today and are estimated to increase over the next decade.
Thanks to Manufacturing IT systems and hardware that are connected to the Internet for all their operations, such as networks, accounting, CRM IT tools, and marketing.
In other words, Manufacturing digitization opens the way for Cybercriminals to gain access to businesses’ information or IT systems control which may cause significant losses.
Apart from strong security, you must allocate effective IT Solutions and train your employees to spot Cyber-attacks and minimize them as much as possible.
In addition, you better equip your IT System and implement new Technology to help secure your network by predicting and preventing cyber-attacks.
The ever-growing number of unfilled knowledge and technology jobs has reached its peak. Accordingly, responding to this manufacturing challenge is crucial to stay on track with global development.
This response requires some degree of flexibility, whether to think from the employee’s point of view to be able to attract more talents and continue to build a strong team or to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) or Machine Learning (ML) to develop internal programs that support outsourcing jobs and make a more flexible schedule.
Managing Data is another Manufacturing IT Challenge. Unfortunately, the inability to manage this massive amount of gathered data related to logistic disruptions, inventory management, production lines, employee Performance, product demand, and so on may cause misleading expectations and failure to meet your core business goals.
The problem here is not the lack of data, but it is that the data is still not integrated or not organized well to be authentic and observable.
In Fact, data is managed and controlled by two IT Systems. For Example, Product demand is controlled by external variables, such as market trends and exchange rates. On the other hand, to manage inventory you must rely on an internal IT system.
In short, Data Management is one of the biggest Manufacturing IT Challenges; however, if you manage it well, you will account for every part and product in ways that increase efficiency and optimize production and set yourself apart from your competitors.
Continued volatility of the Supply chain is one of the most significant Manufacturing IT Challenges you will face as an experienced Manufacturer.
We all know we can’t depend on one technique while deciding upon supply chain parameters. Thanks to the ever-rising costs of raw materials, transportation and delivery challenges caused by the shortage of truck drivers, and confusion in order fulfilments because of the low inventory levels.
Thus, you must rely on IT Solutions to implement new technology like Machine Learning to help improve accuracy and transparency along the entire supply chain.
Technological changes are increasing. So, as a savvy manufacturer, you must be agile in this fast-changing market with technological requirements.
Being agile is a big IT Challenge as you must continue optimizing traditional production lines to meet your customer’s specific needs.
The Challenge here is how to improve production quality by integrating traditional systems with the latest applications. Additionally, designing efficient production processes that can change as data changes will also be an IT Challenge.
We have discussed above 5 of the most significant Manufacturing IT Challenges but Advancements in Technology ensure long-term success as they can help you as a manufacturer expand your production range, increase the flexibility and efficiency of your production process, reduce costs, increase IT System dependability, and avoid Downtime.
Modern Technology can help employees with strong and secure storage to have on-the-go access to vital documents, training certificates, emergency operating plans, and legal and financial records that are periodically reviewed and updated.
Modern Technology can help everyone in your business to stay in the loop and promote a sense of corporate culture even for employees who have limited interactions with leadership or administration or those outside their teams by creating healthy and regular internal communications for communicating important information to a dispersed workforce.
In addition, Modern Technology can act as a translator or a two-way communication for different languages. So, you can spread significant information and store it digitally so your employees can understand and react without anything being lost in translation.
Storing and maintaining safety standards like compliance is crucial. Ideally, Modern Technology plays a significant part in helping you as a manufacturer use an application to easily keep these standards up to date and allow your employees to have access to the most recent standards they need to know.
Technology can help you use advanced analytics and IT tools to provide more reliable and authentic anticipations and drive progress by considering a wide range of internal and external gathered data, analyzing historical data of technical blocks using some statistical techniques, and setting a maintenance schedule without affecting production or delivery schedules.
In today’s Simulation software and applications era, Manufacturing Processes can be flexed to fix possible product flaws.
Ideally, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence can find life-saver solutions to the most critical problems in manufacturing, such as building dynamic algorithms by Machine Learning Apps to help you perform complicated tasks.
While Modern Technology in manufacturing may have been optional before, it is now providing solutions to the most unsolved problems in manufacturing.
As we said above, Manufacturing IT Challenges are vast and varied from data migration and misleading expectations to workforce shortage and supply chain complexes. However, implementing IT strategies with the right IT Solutions will create a smart business that generates insights and solutions based on accurate and updated data.
Innovation Networks is a reliable managed services provider with the ideal IT Solutions to give your business the best technology to help it create its future.
With our IT Solutions, industry-leading automation, and data-driven operations, we will help your business solve the Manufacturing IT Challenges you may face as a manufacturer, prevent any unpredictable issues that may arise, and turn those challenges into an advantage.
If you are ready to solve your Manufacturing IT Challenges, Innovation Networks is the best fit for you. Contact Us Now and start solving your Manufacturing IT Challenges.