Leading Industry 4.0 Players Collaborate to Accelerate Digital Transformation

Leading Industry 4.0 Players Collaborate to Accelerate Digital Transformation
Siemens

Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), McKinsey & Company, SAP, Siemens and TÃœV SÃœD announced a collaboration to support companies, both big and small, scale the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies.

The collaboration aims to develop tools and offerings that can accelerate the digital transformation of manufacturers in Singapore and internationally. This is achieved by leveraging the collective expertise of each company. In 2017, EDB and TÃœV SÃœD launched the Smart Industry Readiness Index, which is a diagnostic tool to help companies assess their readiness for transformation. The Index has been substantially applied in Singapore and is being rolled out in Indonesia, Thailand, India, USA, Europe and Japan.

The Smart Industry Readiness Index is a world-first Industry 4.0 tool developed by the Singapore Government to enable the transformation of industrial sectors, at both the enterprise and national levels. Created in partnership with TÃœV SÃœD and validated by an advisory panel of industry and academic experts, the Index has been designed as a comprehensive tool to help companies across all industries and sizes to harness the value of Industry 4.0 in a systematic and comprehensive way.

At the enterprise level, the Index lays outs a 4-step approach to help manufacturing firms learn about Industry 4.0 concepts, evaluate the current state of their facilities, architect a transformation roadmap, and deliver sustained value for their businesses. At the national level, the Index has the potential to serve as a metric for Industry 4.0 benchmarking within and across industries, enabling government bodies to better design sector-specific policy interventions to accelerate the transformation of industrial sectors.

The Index comprises 3 layers. At the top are the 3 fundamental building blocks of Industry 4.0: Process, Technology, and Organization. Underpinning these building blocks are 8 pillars of focus, which then map onto 16 dimensions of assessment. For each of the 16 dimensions, the Index provides an assessment matrix which companies can use to evaluate their current processes, systems and structures. The assessment matrix also doubles as a step-by-step improvement guide, as each dimension provides intermediate steps needed for companies to progress.

As a next step, EDB in collaboration with McKinsey & Company, SAP, Siemens, and TÃœV SÃœD will enhance the Index with a computational tool that helps companies identify and recommend focus areas and digital initiatives to prioritise based on their individual readiness score and current financial performance. This "Prioritisation Matrix", will be launched at Hannover Messe 2019, alongside a white paper detailing its concept and development.