Need an upgrade? The Old Model is simple.  Purchase a solution from a vendor.  Technicians come into the plant, install a system, and then train the staff.  This is a top-down process that is great for specialized predetermined tasks where everyone is sure about the problem and the vendor need only supply a specific solution.

 

But Industry 4.0 presents a grander, more powerful, more interconnected upgrade opportunity.  Real-value comes from asking the right questions because Industry 4.0 presents opportunities that legacy factories have never seen before.  What’s needed is insight into addressing issues that will involve the whole plant.  It needs a New Model, one more customized to individual plant needs than the narrowly-focused Old Model recognizes.  How are you even to determine what a meaningful, high ROI problem, is?  Indeed, how can you know what Industry 4.0 methods are?

 

The Old Model suggests, ask a vendor.  We disagree.  No one knows your business as well as your staff – your entire staff.  To invest your Industry 4.0 time and money most wisely, that staff needs to share what it knows.  Or, to be more precise, what it needs to know to solve problems better and faster.

 

As McKinsey teaches, Industry 4.0 is all about “Connectivity … the flow of relevant information to the right decision makers in real time.” The ones who know best what that necessary information is are the existing staff. 

 

More: Industry 4.0 is about “Intelligence … the application of advanced analytics … to an array of data to generate new insight and enable better decision making.” McKinsey

 

Our method is a shared experience, an ongoing dialogue between your staff and us.  For Wind4, we provide our custom “office-style” software with the essential Industry 4.0 principles built-in.  Staff can immediately participate with us as we work with them to uncover and address problems and opportunities based on their experiences.  This problem-centered give-and-take approach is experiential, not abstract.  Staff advance by handling rounds of progressively more sophisticated issues, continuously developing a deeper understanding of what Industry 4.0 is all about.  For complex analytics, the tools are TrendMiner, with an additional component of our “office-style” visualization software.  But the give-and-take dynamics are the same.  We work together uncovering the problems and discovering how Industry 4.0 methods can solve them.

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