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Digital Transformation

Digital Transformation on the Shop Floor

Digital transformation is not a project. It is a series of decisions about which parts of your operation to stop doing manually.

For metals manufacturers, that usually starts with paperwork. Mill certificates filed in folders. Production schedules in spreadsheets. Inspection records that nobody can find when an auditor arrives. These are not IT problems. They are business problems with digital solutions.

Industry 4.0 (I4.0) is the shorthand for connected, data-driven manufacturing. Internet of Things (IoT) sensors feed live data from your machines to systems that can act on it. A cutting machine that knows its blade is drifting can flag the problem before the next batch becomes scrap.

The practical entry points for most metals manufacturers are:

  • Automating document-heavy processes: certificates, purchase orders, delivery notes
  • Connecting shop floor machines to central monitoring systems
  • Replacing paper-based inspection records with digital workflows
  • Linking inventory systems to production schedules so you stop running short

The manufacturers who do this fastest aren’t the ones with the biggest budgets. They start with one process, usually certificates or cut planning. They get it working in a week, then show the rest of the team a result. GoSmarter is built for exactly that pattern: live in a day from a CSV upload, piloting on one product family, scaling when you’ve seen it work.

Posts in this section cover the technologies, the case studies, and the change management realities. Including the parts that are harder than the vendors let on.

Nightingale HQ to present at Digital Manufacturing Week 2020

World-class manufacturers will take the virtual stage at the 2020 Digital Manufacturing Week happening from 9 - 12 November. The Originator of Industry 4.0 Henrik von Scheel and leaders from Cobra Beer, Dyson, Rolls Royce, Airbus, Autodesk will all share experiences of bouncing back in uncertain times. We have also been selected to present at the Made Smarter Emerging Technology Show taking place on Friday 13 November.

Read More: Nightingale HQ to present at Digital Manufacturing Week 2020

Manufacturing the future

Industry 4.0 has been budding over the last decade and has a long way yet to mature, however, the onset of the Covid-19 global pandemic has presented a suite of challenges and accelerated the need for solutions. The manufacturing industry has not had the flexibility of remote work to fall back on due to its dependency on onsite workers. Manufacturers will have had to make big changes to ensure the health of workers as they return to workplaces. At the same time, they’ve had to contend with the unpredictability of supply and demand, which could remain unstable for a prolonged recovery period. So how has this impacted manufacturing and what does this mean for the future?

Read More: Manufacturing the future

The shift to AI in manufacturing: post pandemic growth

There is no doubt that AI has enabled major efficiencies in predictability and capacity across the supply chain in manufacturing. The global pandemic has also accelerated digitalisation and automation as key strategic priorities for business, particularly manufacturing.

Read More: The shift to AI in manufacturing: post pandemic growth

Breaking the chain with contact tracing

There is no doubt that contact tracing apps can play a key role in crisis management especially as social distancing measures are lifted in countries across Europe and the rest of the world. In this guest blog, Dr Iain Keaney talks about solving the contact tracing privacy paradox with decentralised AI. He outlines how decentralised AI can preserve anonymity and solve privacy issues, not just in contact tracing, but as a business standard for AI, going forward.

Read More: Breaking the chain with contact tracing

Your business and AI: 18 weeks of webinars

What do you do when a global pandemic hits and messes up your 2020 business plans? We decided to run 18 weeks of webinars. As our pipeline slowed we knew we weren’t the only ones having a hard time navigating Covid-19, so we decided to launch two webinar series, AIFightsBack and #GoSmarter. Since the webinars were a hit, we decided to compile recaps of all the content in one place for easy access, viewing and sharing.

Read More: Your business and AI: 18 weeks of webinars

TechRound Feature

Many SMEs like ourselves are having to look at new ways to do more by using automation tools to streamline and increase productivity. There are 5.8 million SMEs in the UK impacted by COVID and one of the major positives that the global pandemic has brought about is an accelerated level of digital transformation and automation to business. There is a much greater emphasis on adopting AI and automation tools to help them scale, innovate and become more agile.

Read More: TechRound Feature

Smarter remote meetings for productivity

For the penultimate session in our #GoSmarter webinar series, Data Science Apprentice Mia Hatton takes us through various tools for hosting online meetings, lessons and the like, which has become so much more relevant during the times of the pandemic. Our very own Productive Meetings tool is one of six automation tools that we are making available to SMEs through our GoSmarter project to support them through COVID-19.

Read More: Smarter remote meetings for productivity

Automation: The fundamentals

GoSmarter is an AI-powered tools and training support toolkit to help businesses optimise digital operations, saving precious time and helping increase productivity.

Read More: Automation: The fundamentals

7 reasons why SMEs need to automate and how

Going digital and using automation has never been more important to small businesses than it has been since COVID-19. Here's some stats you may not know...

Read More: 7 reasons why SMEs need to automate and how

5.6million UK SMEs - listen up and automate!

This week on AIFightsBack, Steph Locke, CEO of Nightingale HQ, talked about the new GoSmarter automation toolbox, funded by Innovate UK and free for SMEs to use.

Read More: 5.6million UK SMEs - listen up and automate!

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