‘Turn ambition into action to drive Industry 4.0’ urges KPMG

The latest report from KPMG, entitled ‘Beyond the Hype: Separating industry from reality in Industry 4.0’, has shown that while most manufacturers are investing in Industry 4.0 capabilities, few have achieved the scale and integration needed to drive enterprise value.

The report finds that despite the fact many manufacturers are working towards creating the ‘factory of the future’ or digital enterprise, few have worked out how to apply those capabilities across all corners of their operations.

Stephen Cooper, Head of Industrial Manufacturing at KPMG UK, said: “UK manufacturers have shown more enthusiasm than preparedness for Industry 4.0, and our latest report reflects that this is a global trend. In February we released our Rethink Manufacturing report which showed that the majority (56 per cent) of UK manufacturers agreed that Industry 4.0 represents an unprecedented opportunity to revitalise our manufacturing across the country. However, they are far less sure about how it will affect their business and whether they have a coherent strategy and the right talent and skills to capitalise on it.”

The report included a number of benchmarking exercises which found that many organisations demonstrated only a low to medium levels of maturity in key areas such as demand-driven supply chain, machine to machine (M2M) communication, and digital twinning.

However, they showed somewhat better maturity in cloud, robotics, Big Data, cybersecurity, and the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies.

Alec McCullie, Associate Director and UK Lead for Industry 4.0 at KPMG, said: “Gaining experience with Industry 4.0 technologies is certainly important. But the real value of Industry 4.0 comes not from the component technologies or capabilities, but rather through smarter processes that integrate automation, data, analytics, manufacturing, and products in a way that delivers unique competitive advantages and unlocks new business and operating models. This cannot be accomplished without achieving larger scale, greater integration across functions, and a willingness to disrupt the status quo.”

McCullie concluded: “Success in Industry 4.0 is not about how much you invest; the winners will not be those with the deepest pockets. To win in tomorrow’s competitive and rapidly changing environment, manufacturers need to start being bolder in their vision, strategies, and actions if they are to succeed.”