CGI NETHERLANDS
DATA HARVESTING : Key on journey to smart manufacturing
Smart manufacturing is achieved by harvesting data , says Coen Huesmann , CGI VP , Consulting Services Manufacturing Center of Excellence
WRITTEN BY : JANET BRICE
PRODUCED BY : KARL GREEN
One isolated glitch in a manufacturing process could be the difference between life and death as pharmaceutical giants race against the clock to produce vaccines to fight COVID-19 .
CGI is leading the way in consulting global manufacturers – from chemical plants to dairy companies to discrete manufacturers – on how to take the next step on the digital journey towards Industry 4.0 – a move which would also ease production problems . CGI ’ s IT and business consultants help enterprises harvest data to create agile , resilient supply chains which are responsive enough to identify and quickly correct operating issues .
Coen Huesmann , Vice President Manufacturing of CGI Nederland agrees the pandemic is putting a strain on companies and highlights the need for manufacturers to start moving away from a silo approach to an integrated end-to-end process .
“ Many customers have manufacturing sites that have been operating since the 70s or 80s and it ' s about bringing these in line with Industry 4.0 – lifetime of data in a manufacturing company cannot be ignored ,” said Huesmann .
“ This month we heard that vaccines in the Netherlands are delayed because one of the big pharmaceutical companies had an issue in their factory . And now everybody wants to know , why did this problem occur ? But it ' s not easy to get these answers as a factory operates in a big ecosystem . Aside from the fact that vaccines contain living organisms . You have a lot of different machines , and any of these machines can lead to an error . And all that information is sitting in silos and it is information without context ,” he said .
Huesmann leads a team at CGI which helps manufacturing companies optimise operations and build agile supply
118 April 2021