Building Resilience in Manufacturing: The Future is Seamless

With global crises causing delays and challenges up and down the supply chain, leaders are looking for solutions that will increase efficiency, reduce risk, and drive bottom line financial growth.

Unstable supply chains hamper opportunities for growth and success, and at a time where many businesses are facing challenges of inflation and rising costs, prioritizing digitized and automated processes to run seamlessly is a necessary strategic move.

Interruptions from COVID-19 were the initial catalyst here at Sandvik for deploying and accelerating hyper automated systems, and it has bolstered our resilience during the ongoing global disruption we have faced since.

Keeping our customers as unaffected as possible has been a key business priority in recent years and embracing automation has allowed us to continue to deliver for our customers.

By connecting as many elements of the value chain as possible together in a process of hyper automation, a host of benefits for manufacturing companies and customers alike can be unlocked.

Stabilising Supply Chains Through Automation

At Sandvik, we call this concept Seamless Flow; it is a production process where information flows automatically across the value chain, so that the desired product or service can be produced without human intervention.

So how does this work at a company like ours? When a customer places an order electronically, the end-to-end process, from the customer making the order, to Sandvik receiving the payment, is fully connected and automated.

With customers wanting to be able to interact 24 hours a day, it’s crucial that the systems are fully harmonized and seamless to ensure a constant flow of processes.  

The automation allows more flexibility in handling changes in demand, meaning customers experience less volatility and more agility. It’s all about minimising disruption for our customers where we can, helping them enjoy reduced lead times and have more stable supply chains. This boots their operational resiliency, helping them stay competitive in challenging times, and accomplish their business goals faster.

Different partners in our ecosystems are also able to benefit from the technology and data and use it to apply change management and introduce new ways of working in their own companies.

Broader Business Benefits

The benefits of Seamless Flow extend beyond strengthening supply chain resilience, it also increases predictability, efficiency, transparency and sustainability.

The flexibility that Seamless Flow offers also ensures that production is more accurate. The automatic flow of information and the harmonized system means any issues can be identified more quickly, and the data helps continuously improve the process to reduce error, all contributing to reduced wastage, and therefore a more sustainable process.

And all of this happens without the need for human decision making. Rather than spending lots of time verifying that the data used in human decision-making was correct, Seamless Flow can free up time for workers to spend on activities that improve customer value.

The goal of Seamless Flow is not to remove people but rather to use their time and skills more effectively. Instead of doing repetitive and monotonous key punching, they can be connecting with customers, or driving innovation.

The Future is Seamless 

Replicating the Seamless Flow process across production of physical products is in the long-term plan at Sandvik, as we move towards fully closed-loop production facilities.

Fully automating the production stage is a more complex task due to the production of customized and more intricate products, but steps are being taken all the time to bring in automation wherever possible on the factory floor to increase efficiency and accuracy. 

As an engineering group providing products and solutions for mining and rock excavation, rock processing and metal cutting, we’re constantly on the lookout for ways we can innovate and improve.

Investing in systems with automated, digitalized processes and AI-enhanced decisions helps to reduce costs, improve efficiency across the business in our internal value chain. Whether it be production process, the procurement process, the product management process, or automated service tasks, everything has the potential to be optimized and automated.

Driving Digitization

From self-driving machines in automated mines to factories with data constantly updated from the cloud, digitization can be leveraged in so many ways to boost productivity and help companies become more sustainable.

Hyper automation processes like Seamless Flow help businesses like us and our customers stay resilient amidst crises, and also offer a host of other compelling business benefits, making it a strategic investment choice for businesses of all sizes.

For other businesses also looking to embrace automation for resiliency and long-term success, the future is seamless.