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52 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JULY 2020 have a construct within our plants that is truly digitally enabled. We have a single source of truth around source information, and we have common KPIs that govern the performance measurements around how work is being done around the globe. We can access the vast majority of critical information in a real-time fashion. We have analytics running that don't just describe and monitor for us what hap- pened; they begin to tell us when it is going to happen and create utilities that dictate how to ensure it never happens. It's a migration from descriptive to preventative and prescriptive analytics. By no means would we ever say that we've arrived at a fully IoT-enabled capability within our manufacturing because technology contin- ues to evolve. In some regards, we're the archi- tects of that evolution, as well as our partners and others in the industry. We believe we do work more elegantly and smartly today than we ever did in the past. However, there are still things for us to learn. Matties: When companies are in the mind- set of transforming and start sharing with their team that they're going to become a smart factory, oftentimes, employers hear, "I'm about to lose my job. A robot is going to take my place," and rightly so. In a smart, efficient manufacturing environment, you're going to remove the human elements and tasks that can be replaced by the equipment. What do you do with the people that may be displaced? Murphy: That's a question that is very perti- nent to the evolution of manufacturing. As a company that's focused on optimizing man- ufacturers' capabilities, we get that question a lot. Again, our brand promise is to expand human possibility, and we believe automation and enabling digital technologies can work hand in hand to achieve just that. For example, let's say that a repetitive, ergonomically chal- lenging operation is being performed—a task involved that requires two people to perform a lift due to its weight—or there are poten- tially hazardous implications due to the ener- gies being consumed to test something. Gen- erally, anybody who has ever been involved in those processes would rather someone (or something) else do the task. That is where we believe automation can be deployed very effectively to mitigate people being exposed to ergonomically repetitive tasks or any- thing that could subject them to harm from a task hazard analysis standpoint. With all the important KPIs we track as a manufacturer, nothing will ever trump the safety and well- being of our associates. In those instances where we might replace what was a manually-intensive process with a more automated solution, in the end, it's going to protect people and create a degree of certainty; in some cases, it will also lead to increased productivity that will make that process ultimately more profitable for the company. If those processes get chained together to become more capable, they can do more things per minute, per hour, and per day than they did before. They're going to cre- ate an opportunity for the company to invest in an expanded product portfolio or a man- ufacturing capacity expansion if those more predictable operations (leveraging a blend of automation and the human element) cre- ate a customer impression that is far greater than it was in the past in terms of service and quality. We're convinced because we've seen it ourselves. Ultimately, odds are there will be greater demand for those products or ser- vices. Automation changes how we do what we do in manufacturing. Where in the past there might have been a need for less-skilled oper- ators to perform mundane, repetitive tasks, manufacturers are increasingly in need of associates who are more comfortable engaging with a more automated construct of how work is done. Then, you get into the topic of reskill- ing, upskilling, and deploying people toward those new ways of getting work done. We feel that the evidence is clear within our company, and those of our customers who are thought- fully deploying new and enabling technolo- gies, that they don't restrict human opportuni- ties; they expand them.