Page 47 - Packaging News Magazine Jan-Feb 21

January-February 2021 | www.packagingnews.com.au
FOCUS | INDUSTRY 4.0 47 what’s become known as the circular
economy is making it a manufacturing imperative for businesses to do more with less and become sustainable.
With world-leading businesses such as Interface following their founder Ray Anderson’s mission (“We believe that change starts with us and is transforming Interface from a plunderer of the earth to an agent of its restoration”), others are picking up the baton and exploring how they too can have a net positive effect on the environment.
Digital transformation, creating smart factories, embracing Industry 4.0 and investing in education and training for manufacturing leadership and management, is vital if Australia is to compete on the world stage.
After almost a decade since the identification of the beginning of 4IR, the jury is very much in.
Get on board or get left behind. It’s as simple as that. ■
John Broadbent is a smart manufac- turing industry consultant specialis- ing in Industry 4.0. Contact him on e:john@realisepotential.com.au
what your usage is well before the invoice arrives. Using this data, you could even predict what future water usage will be based on current and past usage. The collection of this data can also enable automatic monitoring. Alarms can be triggered as thresh- olds are approached to help avoid unexpected peak charges.
Using this information also pre- pares the culture for determining lead measures as described in the book The 4 Disciplines of Execution.
Lead measures are those measures that predict an outcome with some degree of certainty. They are forward- looking rather than rear-view. An example is the cricket worm used in limited-over cricket matches to plot the runs per over (lead measure) against a target, which will predict the final score (lag measure).
The same can be applied to waste streams by understanding the causes of the waste and perhaps implement- ing some LEAN approaches to address the seven forms of waste, as espoused by the Toyota Production System.
The use of digital systems, such as connected weigh scales to capture some
of these and forward to a data reposi- tory for analysis, is one example.
You might be thinking at this stage: “Yes, but where’s the evi- dence all this actually works in improving sustainability?”
The World Economic Forum (WEF) has created a Global Lighthouse Network (GLN) of 54 manufacturing businesses, which is gradually increasing as other businesses are assessed and invited into the group.
Names we know such as Hitachi, Johnson & Johnson, Siemens, BMW, Phoenix Contact, and Procter & Gamble are part of this group and have reported their findings across a range of manufacturing metrics.
A recent report from professional services giant Deloitte echoes the same sentiment: “Digital factory investments have led to an average increase of 10 per cent in production output, 11 per cent in factory capacity utilisation, and 12 per cent in labour productivity.”
While Deloitte’s research wasn’t spe- cially focused on sustainability, the results are that smart factories consis- tently improve manufacturing metrics across the board. The emergence of