Traditional Manufacturers Drive to Transform with IoT and Analytics

The testimonies from Caterpillar, FlowServe, and a leading food packaging manufacturer at the recent LiveWorx IoT conference, made it clear that a 50 plus to 220-year old company can find new ways to re-imagine the way they do business.

Here are some excerpts on how these manufacturing giants are transforming their futures:

• Caterpillar’s Terri Lewis said, “We’re in the rental business, where the whole experience needs to be easy.” They see value in using PTC’s augmented and virtual reality technology to give customers with a connected, easier experience to learn how to use the equipment in the field. CAT also sees the value of using the Internet of Things (IoT) to identify new revenue streams, such as offering “Power as a Service” for their generator sets.
• Flowserve, the largest manufacturer of pumps, valves, seals, and components to the process industries, is reimagining ways to use IoT and analytics to help their customers reduce the amount of maintenance visits by identifying and fixing the root cause of the problem sooner.

From pilot to production

What was this leading food packaging manufacturer looking to change? The manufacturing company recognized that it needed emerging technology skills and experience to drive its digital transformation. They wanted to drive more efficiency with asset performance and utilization.

How did the team put IoT into action? The manufacturer and Cognizant, the 2016 #1 ThingWorx System Integrator of Year, worked together to:

• Develop a strategic roadmap to deliver new smart products and smart processes.
• Implement Cognizant’s Asset Performance Excellence (APEx) framework to incorporate sensing and analytics technology, built on PTC/ThingWorx IoT platform, to gather data from multiple sensors and IoT-enabled equipment.
• Enabled development of insights, operations and decision-making based on IoT data, which will be the foundation of new service offerings for their customers.

“IoT technologies will be a commodity, and the real value will be in the analytics performed on the voluminous streams of contextual data emitted by the “digital heartbeat” of the value chain.”

What was the result? The company is now gaining better insights from their connected products and plans to scale their IoT program. The goal is to drive value to the business that can increase equipment performance, optimize consumable consumption and replenishment, increase service revenue and reduce the cost of carrying inventory.

Benefits for multiple businesses

Companies like Caterpillar, Flowserve, and our leading food packaging manufacturer can reimagine their business and achieve benefits such as:

• Predictive maintenance: Lowering the total cost of ownership for capital equipment and avoiding costly breakdowns.
• New business models: Create leasing and equipment-sharing options that better serve the customer.
• Continuous improvement: Previously unavailable data from the field enables ongoing product improvements.

Now is the time to leverage similar digital capabilities across the industrial setting to increase customer value and outperform the competition. To learn more about Cognizant’s APEx framework contact us and download the whitepaper, Strategy to Action: Making Industrial IoT Scale.