Fundamental changes in automotive manufacturing have already started to affect your company’s bottom line. Digital transformation in the automotive industry is driving this shift as software and automation present unprecedented opportunities for new product introductions. The question is, how can automotive manufacturers brace for digital disruption and thrive as emerging technologies mature?
The arrival of digital disruption
When you research new automotive technologies, the general consensus is that digital disruption has already arrived. An article published on ManufacturingGlobal.com makes a good case for embracing digital disruption in automotive manufacturing. “To stay competitive, automakers need to break free from cultural inertia and do away with a traditionally conservative approach to innovation and fully embrace the disruptive power of the Digital Age,” says Nitin Rakesh, who wrote this article. Overall, Rakesh poignantly makes the case for embracing the next iteration of automotive manufacturing technology.
In recent times, the experts at Gartner and McKinsey have come to the same conclusion: consumers are expecting automotive technologies to integrate seamlessly with their digital lives. Your task as an EHS or quality management professional is to glean fresh insights into how your company can break through as an industry leader by being prepared when market changes occur rapidly. At its core, digital transformation impacts both consumers and manufacturers.
Digital disruption from a consumer’s perspective
Ultimately, consumers will judge your organization by how well you have manufactured high-quality products. In a digital world where generating and analyzing real-time data is becoming the norm, your biggest challenge is meeting consumer expectations and manufacturing safe products.
“As cars become increasingly software-driven, real-time data can be used to monitor vehicle performance, provide real-time traffic and road hazard alerts, instantly call for emergency assistance and even predict mechanical problems before they happen,” Rakesh says. All of these capabilities are certainly feasible to engineer, but Rakesh does not qualify his assertions with quality management in mind. You know firsthand that integrating emerging technologies is not that simple. The caveat from a consumer’s perspective is that high-tech vehicles are still a niche market. Digital disruption will allow you to offer affordable, high-quality automobiles to all market segments, not just luxury consumers.
The role of EHS and Quality Management Software in digital transformation
In many ways, the emergence of enterprise EHS and quality management software is disruptive in and of itself. EHSQ software has redefined how you approach quality management by giving you more visibility into quality at every stage of production. For instance, integrated EHSQ software gives your company the ability to nurture a truly collaborative work environment and reduce the cost of quality. Everything from 3D modeling to predictive analytics must be integrated holistically to improve quality outcomes. If you add the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to the equation, the chance to revolutionize how your company approaches quality management is too great to pass by.
As Rakesh says, “applying analytics tools to data from smart vehicles has the potential to benefit the manufacturers themselves, by identifying production issues and reliability problems that can be re-engineered and fixed in succeeding models.”
Now matter how your company braces for digital transformation, the bottom line is that integrated EHS and Quality management software can provide insights at a global scale.
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To learn how your organization can strengthen how it manages operational risk across the supply chain, reduce the costs that incidents and non-compliance can wreak on your people and products, and build stronger public sentiment through digital transformation, read this eBook.
