How to Get Your Factory Floor Innovation Idea Approved (and Funded) by Your CEO

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Plant managers often struggle to convince CEOs across the industry to fund innovation projects. Most struggle to connect their proposal to business value. Other C-Level executives I talk to also express frustration that factory managers lose them in detailed technology discussions surrounding voltages, human machine interfaces, and protocol convergence.  Instead, these top leaders look for how suggested innovation can provide savings, competitive advantage, or faster time to market.

The good news is that “smart” manufacturing and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) innovations have radically altered traditional manufacturing rules. Now, plant managers can more directly translate factory floor performance into the CEO language of cost reduction and profitability.

Here’s why it’s easier for CEOs to now sign off on plant innovation proposals:

• Smart and connected things – Until recently, the cost of extracting data from factory floor infrastructure has been prohibitive. Now, low cost sensors make equipment like valves, drives and circuit breakers intelligent. These devices have data to report that impacts both forecasting and investment strategy.
• Edge Control – Factory systems are converging with IT systems so that there can be more control at the edge (point of transaction). Edge control serves as a critical base for launching enterprise-wide efficiency improvement. This results in significant cost savings.
• Powerful analytics – These sophisticated software programs convert “big data” (and dark data) into highly reliable, real time, operational intelligence that enables far less risky business investment decisions.

Schneider Electric has decades of experience in enabling industries around the world drive innovation at every level. The result is unprecedented business value.  Click here to learn more.