Before the introduction of digital tools, factories were collaborative settings. Everybody came to work in the same place and if problems occurred, everybody got into a room and fixed them. Now with advanced digital technology, you can empower seamless collaboration faster and more effectively than ever before.
Digitisation has accelerated manufacturing taking our sector into territory nobody would have thought possible in the analogue era. However, most organisations do not yet have a fully digitised end-to-end process. And factories as workplaces have evolved almost beyond recognition.
This leaves our sector in collaboration limbo, shackled by the departmentalisation of specialists, the global distribution of talent, point solutions, legacy analogue process and the inability to unlock the insights of data for continuous improvement.
The question on most manufacturers’ minds is this – how do we foster levels of collaboration our sector enjoyed in the analogue era? Can technology help us to surpass it?
A room to unleash collaboration without limits
Collaboration is an intrinsically human thing. Unfortunately, if the environment is not conducive to collaboration, the human reaction is to get on with our own thing. This explains why gaps in the value chain are now more prevalent than ever.
Finding a seamless way to harness expertise at the various phases of the value chain is imperative. The specialists of the analogue era had somewhere to collaborate and solve challenges. In other words, they had the conditions to thrive. Modern manufacturing organisations everywhere need something similar, a new ‘room’ to collaborate.
A key factor at play in our industry’s advance from 4.0 to industry 5.0 – this room is a place rooted in the real and virtual worlds where cross team collaboration is accelerated by real-time data, real-time simulation and real-time decision-making no matter where in the world people are based.
Not confined by physical limitations or traditional workflow silos, it operates as a dynamic, interactive space where data from varying sources can be accessed, analysed, and acted upon in real-time. This promotes cross-functional cooperation between different disciplines across global locations, enabling a more agile approach to problem-solving and decision-making.
Modern Factory: Male Industrial Engineer Explains to Female Project Supervisor Functions of the Machine Part Comparing it to one on Computer Screen. They use CAD Software for Design, Development
Using data horizontally to cut through
Collaboration comprises many things. If you focus on data alone, the result will be a system of rich insight with limited ability to act. To drive seamless collaboration in a modern factory setting requires a human-centric system that empowers workers to collaborate with each other, acting on insight.
At Hexagon we meet this need by constructing a virtual platform or environment. Real-time collaboration can occur efficiently across disparate systems and geographical boundaries. Nexus was developed to unleash the power of communication across your business.
Advanced digital tools and humans can work in synergy, fostering innovation, efficiency and growth. This delivers total operational oversight and enables you to orchestrate factory performance like never before.
Where a PLM extracts data sharing it in a centralised command and control way, a digital reality platform like Nexus drives workflows in real-time and provides the space for real-time collaboration in a hybrid world. It meets a need for another layer to cut across the organisation horizontally to drive agility complementing and maximising the value driven by existing digital platforms.
Take the path to seamless collaboration with Nexus
Nexus was born from conversations with customers. Entirely open and vendor agnostic, it harnesses data to create a holistic, horizontal workflow that unites the organisation. This has the effect of unifying fragmented systems, unlocking the multiplier effect by ensuring every piece of technology is working towards the same goal.
Nexus is a tool that breaks down the digital barriers to collaboration. It allows the point technology solutions that exist within each of these silos to be connected through shared data which enables collaboration across the organisation.
By giving visibility to different departments and sharing data, you are enabling faster, more localised, decision-making. Nexus drives autonomy into the far reaches of manufacturing businesses. It pushes decision-making down the chain and empowering the workers on the ground who already have the right know-how, with the right insights to solve problems on the spot.
The power of Nexus is the combination of insight and collaboration. By minimising the amount of time we spend solving problems in manufacturing, we can place ever more focus on innovation. This will ultimately drive our sector towards a very exciting future.
Nexus is the gold standard platform for open collaboration. Harness it and it’s like your silos were never there.
This blog originally appeared in our Collaborate + Automate eBook.
