A Balancing Act

Digital transformation means many things. Solutions for simulation, virtual processes, remote access and connectivity are all part of the picture, as are more fundamental aspects, like improving analytics, automating processes, and reducing reliance on paper-based forms. Successfully implementing a transformative technical upgrade in the process industry means balancing strategic investments in digital innovation against the technical debt of hard-to-change legacy technologies. This is especially true in the pharma and chemical industries, where expensive legacy systems can be an impediment to change. They slow down or sometimes threaten to derail modernization plans.

Shot of highly concentrated and focused caucasian technologist controlling production in food processing factory or pharmaceutical industry.

Going Paperless

A good example of a common ‘first step’ digital transformation effort that many companies are still working on is going paperless. For many enterprises, this sounds a lot easier than it actually is.

One of the most complex aspects of going paperless is converting paper forms to digital entities. Specialty chemicals company Lanxess is tackling this type of digitalization in its production plants over the next three years as part of a larger initiative to introduce mobile operations and maintenance. In a first step toward this goal, the company is working with Siemens to replace around 400,000 paper-based operations and maintenance checklists with digital equivalents filled out on tablets. To do this, Siemens is using a software app called Moby.Check, which can be controlled using either keyboard or voice commands, allowing users to create production, servicing and maintenance checklists on their PC without any programming work or training in advance.

Identify Gaps

Sometimes, patchwork solutions that have built up over time are just too bound up with legacy data compatibility issues to be viable parts of your transformation plans. It’s important to identify issues and gaps early, so that time and money are not wasted on incompatible systems.

A good way to do this is to define your desired end-state, and then work back from there. That way, even as your budget may limit the scope of your current efforts, you can avoid paths that lead to dead ends on the road to digital transformation.

Organization Change

Your digital transformation strategy should include people on both sides of the change management team: the technical and process-oriented folks who have a deep understanding of the technical aspects, and the thought leaders with the people skills necessary to communicate benefits and effectively roll out these changes across an organization. Both sides need to work together to effect change not just at a technical level, but at the organizational level as well.

Putting it together

An effective data architecture is one where systems can interoperate and share data. The need for good data underlies all aspects of effective digital transformation; without that, work on process automation is practically pointless. Your digital transformation team has to be able to communicate the value of the effort to business leaders—effective analytics are essential. Lastly, be sure to document your lessons learned from all digital transformation efforts. ‘What could have been better’ is at least as valuable a learning lesson as ‘what went well.’

It’s important that your digital transformation planners and business strategists work closely with expert consultants or in-house IT teams to ensure that the framework you put into place will be interoperable and flexible enough to support key goals across your entire org moving forward.

Learn more about digitizing paper forms with Moby.Check.

This article was published in paid partnership with Siemens. Siemens is only paying for my time, not for my opinions.