By Nick Castellina, Infor industry & solution strategy director

Digital manufacturing. Industry 4.0. You’re probably familiar with these terms, and maybe you’ve even successfully piloted these concepts. But how do you roll out such an initiative more broadly, beyond a specific use case, to ensure you are deploying operational intelligence to your entire operation and across factories, and gaining the promised productivity increases?

Many companies start with a predictive maintenance pilot, according to Capgemini’s podcast: “Emerging Trends in Digital Manufacturing with Pascal Brosset.” Improving the reliability of critical assets has an obvious payback, uses proven analytics, and is overseen by a limited, self-contained team: maintenance. Further, more and more equipment manufacturers provide maintenance services or applications along with the asset itself, which further accelerates the maturity and popularity of this use case.