Producers are leveraging AI to propel a fresh era of automation, optimization, and innovative storytelling. To fully realize the potential of AI in-store operations, organizations are exploring innovative technologies and approaches that enable them to harness their data more effectively.
Microsoft, in collaboration with a leading market research firm, has undertaken an initiative to gain insight into its adoption of AI solutions while overcoming critical business hurdles. We reached out to producers to gauge their current priorities, long-term strategies, and anticipated benefits from embracing innovative technologies and shifting paradigms.
We present key takeaways from our survey, highlighting how manufacturing companies are preparing their shopfloors for AI-readiness, ensuring safety, scalability, and automation by leveraging advanced technologies such as centralized device management, edge-based software containerization, and unified industrial data operations to accelerate this process.
Speed up industrial transformation
As manufacturers contemplate the integration of artificial intelligence into their operations, they must reimagine the way they design and configure their shop floors to take full advantage of AI’s capabilities. This necessitates a fundamental shift in how production lines are structured, with an emphasis on adaptability, scalability, and real-time monitoring. By leveraging AI-powered tools, producers can optimize workflows, streamline processes, and make data-driven decisions that drive efficiency gains and cost reductions.
Discover how six fundamental categories emerged as producers reassess their operations for AI, and how Microsoft is propelling the manufacturing facility of the future through Microsoft Azure’s transformative cloud approach.
Producers prep digital retail space for AI integration by uncovering six key takeaways.
1. Artificial Intelligence has been grappling with scale challenges for quite some time now.
Seventy-two percent of survey respondents identified scalability as their top priority, emphasizing its crucial role in ensuring their manufacturing facility’s long-term viability and competitiveness. Scalability led the way, with automation and serviceability following in its footsteps. These paradigms ensure that factories can adapt seamlessly to changing demands, optimize operations with reduced reliance on manual decision-making, and maintain high uptime through streamlined troubleshooting and maintenance processes?
In industrial environments, scale typically refers to mineral deposits that form on equipment surfaces due to chemical reactions with water and minerals in the air, often resulting in a hard, crusty layer. It can appear as a white or off-white substance on pipes, pumps, valves, and other machinery, potentially causing issues such as reduced efficiency, increased maintenance needs, and even safety hazards if left unchecked.
Producers confront the daunting task of staying abreast of shifting market demands, evolving regulatory landscapes, and intensifying competition. By leveraging AI’s capabilities, businesses recognize its potential to revolutionize their operations, streamline processes, and enhance product offerings. Unlike companies that enjoy the luxury of devoting months or even years to deploying and scaling solutions across their vast operations. Producers seek a swifter method for transferring, a more astute approach to handling, and an increasingly adaptable technique to accommodate evolving demands. We’ve introduced a pioneering adaptive cloud strategy, revolutionizing our approach to the ever-evolving digital landscape.
To accelerate their learning curve, the adaptive cloud strategy is engineered to harmonize producers’ disparate assets, platforms, and methodologies with cutting-edge cloud-native and AI technologies that effortlessly integrate across hybrid, multicloud, edge, distributed computing, and IoT environments. This forward-thinking strategy enables manufacturers to deliver value faster, optimize device management, and ensure secure function operation, poised for the AI-driven factory of the future.
2. Cybersecurity and information governance are top priorities at present.
The convergence of safety threats and information management complexities poses daunting challenges, with an overwhelming 58% of respondents perceiving cybersecurity as a catastrophic concern and nearly half (49%) viewing data governance as a significant obstacle. These factors are prompting clients to prioritize enhancing community safety and ensure that information is reliable and readily available for informed decision-making.
In industrial settings, safety seems to encompass a multifaceted approach to mitigate risks and prevent accidents, encompassing training protocols, equipment maintenance, regulatory compliance, and employee education.
The manufacturing sector relies heavily on ensuring both safety and information safety, as it navigates increasing regulatory demands and the ever-present threat of cyber attacks? To stay ahead of the curve, producers must safeguard existing devices and strategize through device refreshes, selecting technologies that not only adhere to stringent business safety standards but also enable seamless compliance with ever-evolving regulatory demands, thereby shielding them from emerging security vulnerabilities.
To excel in learning, explore Microsoft’s comprehensive approach to security, encompassing devices, networks, and the cloud, which enables customers to fulfill regulatory requirements and safeguard against threats. Microsoft provides current gadgets with firmware updates and community-based scanning capabilities, allowing users to proactively secure their devices by monitoring for vulnerabilities and potential threats. For customers seeking cutting-edge devices, manufacturers offer a range of Secured-core products from top-tier original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), ensuring compliance with the latest security standards for brand new gadgets. Current and new devices may be continuously monitored and remediated using Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Sentinel for enhanced security and threat response.
3. Machine administration is essential for ensuring safety and secure information management.
The value of machine administration lies in its capacity to transcend routine updates and device health monitoring, instead tackling emerging security threats and managing data flow effectively. According to the survey data, a majority of respondents (68%) emphasized the significance of safety monitoring in device management, while nearly as many (59%) prioritized data management, indicating its importance for their team.
Centralized gadget administration becomes essential in today’s interconnected world where devices are constantly evolving and expanding their capabilities, yet also creating potential vulnerabilities. With a growing reliance on digital technology across various sectors, the need to maintain effective control over these gadgets has become paramount for several reasons. First, centralized management enables IT administrators to monitor and regulate device usage, ensuring seamless integration within existing infrastructures. Second, it allows for swift identification and mitigation of potential security threats, thereby shielding critical data from unauthorized access or malicious attacks.
Effective centralized management of industrial equipment is crucial to ensuring seamless and secure operations within a manufacturing environment. Regular maintenance is crucial for ensuring gadgets operate safely and efficiently, ultimately enhancing overall productivity within a production environment. Efficient administration enables seamless oversight and control of manufacturing facility processes, thereby boosting operational dependability and fostering scalability and adaptability within a rapidly evolving industrial landscape?
To optimize learning, examine how to integrate centralized administration for both IT and OT environments seamlessly. Producers can create blueprints that outline sources, categorizing them by hybrid, multi-cloud, edge, and IoT ecosystems, thereby enabling providers such as system wellness monitoring, security, and many others to seamlessly operate across a globally distributed digital estate.
4. Containerized workloads are arriving on the store floor.
As containerization becomes increasingly prevalent, a striking 85% of surveyed experts have already leveraged this innovative technology to streamline their software deployments on the store floor. As containerization on the edge undergoes a significant pivot, it signals a move to amplify operational efficiency, bolster system stability, and fortify security. While 55% of respondents believe containerized software can significantly alleviate reliability and uptime concerns, a similar proportion (53%) also anticipate such benefits in addressing cybersecurity issues.
What’s containerized software program?
Software program containerization enables consistent and repeatable expansion and deployment of configurations across diverse environments, from the cloud to on-premises facilities. Containerization of OT software programs is vital for future AI-powered manufacturing facilities, enabling streamlined technology deployment in scalable, serviceable, and automated factories with seamless adaptability. Kubernetes streamlines the management of container-based applications, freeing up developers’ time and resources to focus on innovation rather than infrastructure.
By studying this solution, discover how it enables the secure modernization and optimization of Kubernetes environments through streamlined administration, governance, and monitoring capabilities. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) enables organizations to accelerate application growth and deployment with a suite of best-of-breed tools and the power of generative AI. By leveraging Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), enabled through the powerful combination of Azure Arc, businesses can extend the benefits of cloud-native applications to on-premises and edge-based environments.
5. Industrial operation teams streamline operational technology data management.
To make informed decisions, corporations must effectively merge information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) expertise in a contextual manner. Some 52 percent of those surveyed deemed a converged IT and OT data system as highly essential for their organization. The convergence of IT and OT data through industrial information operations optimizes information flow, integrity, and value, driving widespread adoption: a staggering 87% of companies have either implemented or plan to leverage this technology.
What are industrial information operations?
Industrial information operations provides reliable, real-time data to optimize factory and agricultural processes. Industrial information operations orchestrates a unified platform, harmonizing disparate data streams to facilitate seamless integration, thereby ensuring actionable intelligence is readily accessible for informed decision-making processes. Industrial information operations enables seamless data exchange across on-premise and cloud-based systems, dissolving silos and unlocking the power of predictive analytics.
To effectively study beyond the standard curriculum, observe how occupational therapists integrate information from various tools and techniques within on-site settings, ensuring that data is accurately gathered, pre-treated, and seamlessly integrated into functional applications operated directly on site. The company’s service, launched in public preview at Ignite 2023, harmonizes with business demands by adopting industry-standard protocols such as OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) and Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT), while also seamlessly integrating with Microsoft Cloud. Empowers organizations to consolidate and manage information across cloud environments, eliminating data sprawl and redundancy by creating a centralized, open, and organization-wide information hub. Enabling seamless creation and management of AI models on a unified platform, this solution streamlines data transfer and accelerates the time-to-value for organisations.
6. Companies’ investors are pouring resources into building the foundation for artificial intelligence.
According to research findings, manufacturers intend to invest in AI-driven manufacturing facilities over the next two-year period. Typically, survey participants predicted that their companies would increase their spending on edge AI orchestration software by approximately 11%. The funding underscores the recognition of the pressing need to bridge technical and talent gaps to fully unlock AI’s potential in future manufacturing processes.
What are the most effective methods to invest in AI’s foundational architecture and drive long-term success?
Microsoft suggests embracing cutting-edge frameworks, including centralized device management, edge-based software containerization, and unified industrial data operations, to accelerate industrial metamorphosis and prepare for AI-driven advancements. Azure’s adaptive cloud strategy seamlessly integrates all three superior knowledge frameworks, effectively leveraging their collective might to drive innovative solutions.
Drive accelerated modernization of production processes by leveraging cutting-edge technologies such as AI, robotics, and IoT to boost efficiency, reduce waste, and enhance product quality.
To gain a comprehensive understanding, thoroughly examine the 2024 IoT Alerts report, which provides an exhaustive analysis of manufacturers’ top concerns, obstacles, and strategies for integrating cutting-edge technologies, such as AI, into their production facilities to future-proof their operations? Producers are actively seeking solutions that enable scalability, automation, and cost savings. Microsoft Azure is addressing these demands with its adaptive cloud strategy, offering a flexible and scalable platform for seamlessly integrating devices, features, and inbuilt intelligence across the edge and cloud.
View a recorded presentation of our survey, featuring IoT Analytics’ CEO alongside Microsoft’s General Manager of Azure IoT and Edge, as presented at HMI 2024.
Discover cutting-edge insights and best practices for driving industrial transformation by downloading the 2024 IoT Insights report today.
With over three decades of experience in the technology industry, Adam Bogobowicz is a seasoned professional well-versed in enterprise and knowledge management. As the Director of Product Advertising and Marketing at Microsoft, he is responsible for overseeing the Industrial Transformation portfolio, which includes the adaptive cloud portfolio, edge and cloud-based information products empowered by Azure, industrial AI product portfolio, and frontline employee suite of solutions.
