Co-Creating the Future: Part 2 – Making Your Data Digital

 In part two of our Co-Creating the Future series with SIG, we’ll cover how and why manufacturers should make the shift from paper to data. This post was originally published on SIG’s SIGnals blog.

In part one, we discussed how the food and beverage industry is ripe for digital transformation and a new era of innovation. Yet, with many manufacturers still operating in a paper environment for information collection and reporting, the first crucial step is to move from paper to data.

Speed, accuracy, and traceability

Traditional paper-based operating systems suffer from a number of issues, the biggest being speed, accuracy, and traceability. Paper record management is inherently slow, with plant workers typically having to move between work stations—each time checking off boxes, filling out forms, or copying down numbers.

An increased number of manual processes often leads to human error. No matter how experienced people are, they will inevitably make mistakes. This situation can be exacerbated when working across a range of equipment types within 24/7 operations, with multiple employees from different shifts potentially affecting the process over the course of a day.

Paper-based information also exists in silos – what’s written on the paper exists only on the paper. But information within manufacturing plants typically needs to be archived, shared, or analyzed. And if manufacturers want to perform analysis on huge reams of paper, it can be an impossible task just to gather all the information needed in one place. 

All these factors create a complex working environment for manufacturers—not just on the shop floor but through all support and strategic levels, right up to senior management. Whether it’s real-time tracking or monthly reporting, managing the paper trail can be inefficient, time-consuming, and simply overwhelming. This results in lower quality, longer lead times, and higher costs. 

The complexities of paper

At GE, we’ve experienced first-hand the complexities of paper at one of our factories in Germany. They timed how long it took a worker to process an order for a part via paper. It was over 25 minutes. When they digitized the worker’s process, this 25-minute task became a six-minute task. With digitization, workers could pick up a part and scan a barcode before performing the task and moving it onto the next stage of the process. There were no errors and the data could be shared and analyzed to find further productivity and quality gains for the future.

We’re applying this experience, together with learnings from other industries, to the development of solutions for the food and beverage industry. “Industries like extraction and refining can be more asset intensive than most food and beverage operations, but that asset-centricity does provide some valuable operational and service data,” says Matt Wells, VP of Product Management at GE Digital.

Managing data from diverse equipment and multiple suppliers is another key issue that we’re striving to solve. Our Predix portfolio of applications can interface with a wide range of industrial equipment and protocols, either directly or through relevant standards like OPC. Our MES, HMI/SCADA, and ERP software is open, layered and ‘asset agnostic’, meaning it interfaces with all asset types regardless of supplier.

This means that, together, SIG and GE Digital can not only create an entire plant solution but also seamlessly implement digital solutions on top of a customer’s existing technology. Ultimately, this will relieve plant workers from costly and inefficient paper data collection, giving them more time to address operating issues rather than simply identifying them.

To see how manufacturers can apply this newfound wealth of data, don’t miss part three of the Co-Creating the Future series where we’ll examine how data can transform performance.

Miss the first blog in the series? Read Part 1: The Time is Ripe for Change

Want to continue reading? Read Part 3: Accelerating Performance