Post-COVID-19 manufacturing: Eugenie’s new operational intelligence approach

New normal of the manufacturing: Taking the digital plunge

The unparalleled spread of Covid-19 and the resulting lockdowns have created a challenging situation for most manufacturers globally with 78 percent of manufacturers in the US expecting a financial impact on their business, as per a survey.

The grim effects of the economic downturn are already manifested in the form of plunging oil prices, supply chain gaps, reduced spending, and unstable credit markets. A lot of companies have shut down facilities due to falling product demands and government restrictions which are resulting in layoffs to cut operational costs.

The manufacturing sector is primed to be gravely affected due to two main reasons – Inability to conduct a lot of jobs remotely and a drastic reduction in demand for many products globally due to the restricted trades.

Extended absenteeism of the staff workers and mandatory health-related precautions are compelling companies to embrace digitally empowered automation. Technologies like AI, IoT, Cloud will be at the forefront of the post-pandemic industrial world.

As per Gartner, the value of investments and factory planning in the aftermath of the COVID crisis will involve “The great reset” comprising of the altered cost views for reprioritizing initiatives to meet the new reality of a global slow-down.

Amid the rampant uncertainty, we at Eugenie believe that the decision-makers will face an arduous task of not only altering their business models, but also a serious rethinking of their business goals.

We propose the following strategies that can contribute to not only coping but also in commencing an establishment of a stronger operational framework for thriving in the new normal ecosystems.
Embracing agility and automation

Post-COVID market demands will witness volatile shifts, as a result of the ensuing economic recession. Manufactures need different plans to respond to rapidly changing market conditions and supply chain disruptions. Requirements for cost reduction and operational efficiency will manifold to keep up the production performance. The availing predictive power of AI can help manufacturers turn unstructured data into real-time actionable insights that can help in predicting probable glitches and vulnerabilities.

With AI, the supply chain can be optimized, based on dynamic factors like prioritization and continuous evaluation. AI-powered operational intelligence can create self-correcting, intelligent supply chains which will be pivotal in shaping the post-pandemic manufacturing.

A digitized supply chain essentially reinforces a single source of truth that establishes capabilities of risk anticipation, better coordination, and greater visibility.

With Eugenie, continuous monitoring of the system behavior allows automated and holistic insights into anomalous behaviors and overall efficiency. Eugenie’s robust AI workbench ensures notifications of performance and operational efficiency which enables plant staff to identify issues before they demonstrate major business impacts.

Root-cause analysis of the anomalies and performance deviations enable improvements in planning and reducing data-to-action time, thereby increasing the reliability of the operations.
Empowering Digital Ecosystems with digital twins and AI

In the post-pandemic manufacturing world, digital transformation will be a game-changer as the companies using industry 4.0 capabilities have reported a 30 to 50 percent reduction in machine downtimes, 15 to 30 percent improvements in productivity, and up to 20 to 30 percent increase in throughput.

In the post-COVID scenario, real-time analytics, digital infrastructure, and business process management will be important to streamline operations and workflows. Usage of digital twins and machine learning-enabled insights will be instrumental in understanding granular costs and tying them to efficacy using real-time analytics. Digital twins are increasingly being used in industries for gauging a holistic overview of production capabilities and a bridge between the physical assets and virtual equipment evolve.

The industry 4.0 capabilities can contribute significantly to the new normal with capabilities of data-based computational insights, predictive analytics, smart human-machine interactions, and advanced production techniques such as additive manufacturing.

Eugenie’s provision of providing virtual digital twins have greatly helped our customers in taking stock of the overall efficiency of the plants with a human-centered approach. Eugenie’s digital twins involve user-centric designs and features that empower manufacturing personnel in saving time and faster decision making.
Optimizing operations with simulations

Digital business transformation will involve a shift from prototypes to digital simulations. In the absence of physical prototypes, a virtual model presents a cost-effective, convenient, and technically accurate visual representation of the plants and equipment. Digital simulations will allow the evaluation of different production strategies for various scenarios – which can greatly help organizations to understand potential risks and costs involved.

Eugenie’s machine learning-based simulations provide a low-cost avenue for understanding varied business dynamics resulting from the various operational scenarios. Acceleration of operational and production efficiency can be implemented rapidly with Eugenie’s operational simulation capabilities.

In the next normal, the success of companies will depend on the optimization of manufacturing performances, resilience, and quality. Going digital with cutting-edge technologies like AI is no longer an optional factor in production optimization, but an enforcing need to cope with the new normal.

While most manufacturers have realized the significance of evolving to digital manufacturing, not all of them can deploy digital technologies at the required pace. More than 70 percent of organizations are in a state of pilot purgatory where lack of clarity about the approach in scaling operations across the networks is rampant. Such hindrance if often the result of a myriad of factors such as lack of strategic focus, skill gap, and an absence of capable digital infrastructure.
Eugenie.ai – About the framework

Eugenie’s operational intelligence framework consists of easily deployable and user-friendly workflows that can assist the organizations to take a digital plunge from the current state of disarray. The operational resilience of Eugenie is rooted in the cohesive framework of Connect, Track, and Diagnose. The end-to-end operational intelligence framework of Eugenie consists of the following essential components:

Connect: The Connect component involves sensorization of the assets and processes as well as creating digital twins for a comprehensive synopsis of the assets.

Track: Real-time monitoring of the assets for uninterrupted monitoring, resulting in reliability, availability, and maintainability.

Diagnose and enable: AI-driven outlier detection to precipitate predictive and prescriptive maintenance as well as inventory optimization.

The aforementioned framework involves rigorous and accurate insights that can facilitate overall efficiency and quality control, resulting in organizational operational reform.

The unfolding crisis will not only leave its imprints in the form of economic challenges, but it will also herald new opportunities to improve performance and reliability. Difficult decisions about accelerating operational efficiency without the loss of earned credibility will call for pushing the envelope of technological adoption. The manufacturers who can seize the digital opportunities will thrive in the upshot of the ongoing uncertainty.

To know more about the AI-powered operational intelligence platform of Eugenie, register for a demo.