The Critical Role of The IT Department

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When you think performance improvement in a manufacturing plant, is the first thing that comes to your mind, the IT Department? Well, maybe it should be. Like everything else concerning technology, the role of the IT department is changing and becoming more critical than ever to the improvement and productivity of your factory. Understanding this fact and getting IT involved early in your digital transformation decisions is absolutely critical to your success. There is a misnomer that IT can be a barrier to the improvement process. Here’s why! Operations identify a need for improved systems such as Smart Factory data and software. They begin to go down the road of searching for this technology and may even identify a vendor’s and a software solution. Then, somewhere later in the sales cycle IT is asked to sign off on the new technology and this is where the trouble begins. It is only at this moment that corporate data security standards and protocols are applied and tested against the new technology. This research and testing can be time consuming, but, if the software or IoT devices are poorly designed and lack the back end security protocols, IT must step in and reject the entire project. So what looks like IT being a barrier in the way of progress is really this department doing their job and if they had been involved from the beginning could have helped avoid weeks and even months of wasted work. What we have found here at L2L is that the IT department can be an amazing asset to factory improvement projects if they are involved at the inception stage of a digital transformation project. And to really kick it up a notch, if the IT department actually introduces the idea for a solution, that is easy to use, secure, and provides real-time data. A solution that both Operations and Maintenance can use. Then, IT takes the initiative and leads this project, things really get good. If you would like to learn more about how IT can help in this critical role or if you would like to learn more about Digital Transformation, go to L2L.com and download our free ebook on Digital Transformation.

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