The newly released ‘2024 Machine Health Is Business Health’ report reflects how manufacturers increasingly recognize the benefits of adopting tech solutions, though C-Suite and plant-level staff perspectives diverge on several fronts.
“Manufacturers continue to focus on critical asset reliability and finding technologies that can help,” according to the new ‘2024 Machine Health Is Business Health’ report. “Workforce concerns still rank among the top challenges, but signs of optimism indicate progress is felt in the back office and on plant sites.”
In other words, the technologies have proven their worth, and now it’s time to embrace them even more – and by more people.
Download report: ‘2024 Machine Health Is Business Health’.
Bringing People and Culture Up to Speed
For this third annual Augury report, research partner Endeavour Business Intelligence surveyed 224 corporate and plant-floor managers who are members of the Plant Services database. The wide-ranging industries span the energy, utilities, process manufacturing, and discrete manufacturing sectors. Most companies have 1-5 manufacturing facilities (65%), while 18% have more than 20 manufacturing facilities (18%).
The report builds on last year’s ‘2023 Machine Health Is Business Health’ findings, which concluded: “Manufacturing leaders faced with workforce and economic challenges are leveraging advanced monitoring technologies to manage plant health.”
Efficiency Is Up But Workforce Concerns Remain
Certainly, the central message of the 2024 report remains the embracing and scaling of tech solutions that address specific challenges. Yet, there have still been some significant shifts. For instance, the need for upskilling has surpassed downtime as a primary concern for plant-level respondents.
“While supply chain disruptions are the leading challenge from both the corporate and plant perspectives, workforce shortages and skills gaps are the second- and third-ranked challenges for plant respondents, surpassing even unplanned production downtime by a significant margin. These two workforce challenges also rank relatively high among corporate respondents, sharing fifth place.”
“The need for upskilling has surpassed downtime as a primary concern for plant-level respondents.”
It’s also interesting to note other differences between corporate and plant responses. “For instance, the front line and back office moved farther apart on the challenge of adopting new technology, which jumped from 11% to 29% for corporate respondents but was relatively flat for plant respondents year over year.”
Prescriptive Maintenance Taking Hold
One particularly positive shift is the increasing use of proactive maintenance, with prescriptive maintenance – which offers real-time predictions on degrading assets – entering the report as a measured value for the first time.
“Surprisingly, corporate respondents who report having the ability to visualize the real-time condition of critical assets across all sites fell to 36% in 2024, from 48% in 2023. This appears to be a disconnect with the plant point of view. […] 85% of plant respondents this year report the ability to respond well, moderately well, or extremely well to real-time changes in asset conditions.”
“One explanation could be that the more technology is adopted, the more detached the corporate and plant teams become. Another possibility is that some corporate respondents with centralized, personalized, at-a-glance business metrics are prioritizing other metrics above cross-site, real-time critical asset conditions, which would be unfortunate.”
After all: “As more prescriptive solutions become available and more plants leverage the technology, the industry as a whole will gain from its value.”
“There are generational advances happening in technology, and more industrial companies should be reimagining and transforming how their plants run.”
Optimism In The Air
All in all, the report reflects increased optimism: “The combination of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, and reliability expertise holds the key to overcoming multiple roadblocks and challenges, from workforce gaps and unplanned downtime to asset data collection.”
But yes, challenges remain: “Manufacturers should be eyeing strategies that leverage those same tools and setting ambitious goals around supply chain management, tech adoption, upskilling, and other areas. There are generational advances happening in technology, and more industrial companies should be reimagining and transforming how their plants run.”
In other words, there’s still plenty of work to do – both in the boardroom and the factory floor.
Download report: ‘2024 Machine Health Is Business Health’.
