Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1355791
56 I-CONNECT007 I REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2021 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE apparent as he outlined methodologies and processes adopted by companies that had used them successfully. Shrewdly avoiding the need to hide behind a mask—by standing in an empty hall at his Cleveland editorial office—he declared that to talk about the future he needed to consider the present and recognise the revolution that was already unfolding. All the way through his talk he emphasised that this "great digital transformation," which offered the first real hope of overcoming the brutal environment of the present, was about solving manufacturing problems. But the solu- tions were not as simple as throwing AI or IoT or robots at the problems, and he was not going to bore us with lengthy discourses on theory and change management. His approach was to demonstrate what was possible by looking from the inside at some manufacturing opera- tions where the thinking and the processes were sound. His extreme example of what was possible with a fully realised digital strategy was Intel's wafer fab, which did indeed employ all the "gee-whiz amazing tech-toys," gener- ated six billion data points per day and achieved "near-perfect results nearly every time" with the smart use of smart technologies. Statistics and case studies of fully realised digital strategies could send confusing mes- sages, and they suggest to the industry at large that the technology was the solution. Hess- man made it clear that it wasn't that easy! Although all the potential gains were realis- able, no amount of spending could make them happen overnight. And he showed some much more realistic figures, indicating, for example, that 84% of companies were still stuck in pilot mode aer a year, and that 60% of projects were shut down at the proof-of-concept stage. Everything was about process, and the issue with digital transformation was that technol- ogy was becoming divorced from the actual manufacturing processes it was designed to serve. And if investment in technology was not part of an overall process, it became a bomb thrown into the operational heart of the organisation. e technologies and tools could achieve great things, but not unless they were integrated into the underlying process. e technologies themselves were not to blame for the failure of IoT projects; it was the framing and the strategy. Hessman had been working with manu- facturers to develop a new frame of thinking about technology. e overall concept was to prioritise the business over the technology, leading with the problem, not the solution; focusing on the problems, then examining the technologies that could solve those problems, looking on them as "tools to help you do what you do better."