When it comes to Industry 4.0, the #1 question most customers ask is: “SAP has a broad manufacturing portfolio for both process and discrete manufacturers, so how do we get started on our Industry 4.0 journey?”

Our approach: “Document your maturity model for each plant/site for they will most likely differ and then start your Industry 4.0 journey.

What is meant by an Industry 4.0 journey?

Industry 4.0 is a journey toward incorporating the latest technology into manufacturing and increasing productivity, reducing operating costs, and increasing output.

How to get started?

As a manufacturer, you have several options to get started on your Industry 4.0 journey- let’s explore just a few.

• Start your journey with SAP
  • Visit SAP’s Industry 4.NOW site and see the value Industry 4.0 delivers.
  • After completing your tour of Industry 4.NOW, feel free to take SAP’s Industry 4.NOW Maturity Assessment. The self-assessment is a survey to evaluate the digital process maturity of your Industry 4.0 transformation journey by measuring your score through five dimensions: Foundation, Intelligent Products, Intelligent Factories, Intelligent Assets, and Empowered People. Only one section needs to be completed to receive your personalized report, which shows your current maturity level and gives recommendations for the next steps. The maturity assessment will walk you through the five dimensions of the assessment. You will want to do this for each plant that you would like to understand the Industry 4.0 Maturity Model.
    • Foundation – Standardized processes, digitally-driven processes
    • Intelligent Factories – An intelligent factory is agile, adaptable, and ready to support different production scenarios. It’s also elastic and able to deal with varying production volumes and manufacturing technologies
    • Intelligent Assets – In many companies, actual asset health is unknown, and data is collected and handled in several silos. This leads to a significant amount of avoidable downtime and inefficiency
    • Intelligent Products – As the name implies, these highly customized products aren’t easily put together. They’re detailed, individualized, and their advanced capabilities require advanced IT
    • Empowered People – No matter how far automation goes, manufacturers will always need people. Operators will fill roles that cannot be automated, completing complex tasks and making intuitive exception-based decisions. People are and will continue to be your most important resource; giving them the tools they need to do their jobs more effectively will be the most important task
  • With the completion of the assessment, you will receive an email that has:
    • Next Steps
    • A download of the full report
    • An instant view of current digital maturity mapped against each dimension assessed
  • Download the report.
    • The report header will contain: “So, what’s next?” section-Challenges, benefits, and what to do next
    • The report will contain the results of the five dimensions if you selected to answer them all.
      • The maturity model will contain Level 1(Deficient), Level 2(Basic), Level 3(Defined), Level 4(Advanced), and Level 5(Optimized) results
    • You will receive a detail section for each dimension
      • Foundation – Questions asked in the survey assess your maturity level and what this means for the business. For a total of nine use cases
      • Intelligent Factories – Questions asked in the survey assess your maturity level and what this means for the business. For a total of nine use cases
      • Intelligent Assets – Questions asked in the survey assess your maturity level and what this means for the business. For a total of nine use cases
      • Intelligent Products – Questions asked in the survey assess your maturity level and what this means for the business. For a total of nine use cases
      • Empowered People – Questions asked in the survey assess your maturity level and what this means for the business. For a total of nine use cases

Summary: Pay close attention to each “What this means for you” section.

• Start an Industry 4.0 Proof of Concept or Pilot
• Start small by kicking off a pilot or proof of concept using a manufacturing execution system (MES) like SAP’s Digital Manufacturing Cloud or SAP’s Manufacturing Suite. The MES should give you complete visibility across the organization and include equipment integration, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning, which will help you achieve a maturity level of 5 for a given dimension. Vertical integrations between SAP products are delivered out-of-the-box, and vertical integrations to equipment can be achieved using SAP’s Plant Connectivity. You will want to accomplish a simple horizontal integration, like machine to machine, as well. Once you complete an end-to-end integration to machinery, identify the Key Performance Indicators(KPIs) to actively monitor the outcomes of less downtime and increased output for machines, people, and products.
• SAP strategic approach – The SAP Service Framework for Industry 4.0 follows our proven Services methodology and is based on four major pillars:
  • We provide a holistic Industry 4.0 portfolio of services covering the complete project lifecycle
  • This Industry 4.0 specific offering helps to reduce Time-To-Value with proven industry 4.0 leading practices
  • It supports all engagement models; either SAP is leading the project, one of our Partners is leading the project, or SAP and Partner are leading together
  • And finally, delivering one business configuration content library as a baseline for all Industry 4.Now use cases

Check out this further information to learn more about SAP’s Digital Manufacturing Cloud for Industry4.NOW and the Manufacturing Suite for Industry4.NOW:

Digital Supply Chain – Manufacturing

SAP Digital Manufacturing Cloud – Digital Manufacturing

SAP Manufacturing Suite – Manufacturing Execution and Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence

SAP S/4 HANA Manufacturing – Production Planning & Scheduling

SAP S/4 HANA Manufacturing – Production Engineering & Operations

Thank you,

Rusty Baldwin, Global Solution Owner – Manufacturing