The hottest five steps to build a new digital chem

A new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial reform (i.e. the fourth industrial revolution, industry 4.0) has begun in Europe and the United States, and the pattern of international industrial division of labor is being reshaped. How to seize this major development opportunity and deal with new challenges has raised a historic question to all Chinese enterprises, especially the manufacturing industry. At the macro level, this government has pointed out the direction of the "made in China 2025 strategy". At the micro level, we believe that building a benchmark digital chemical plant is an important step to promote enterprises to achieve leapfrog innovation

the so-called digital factory refers to a new production organization mode that simulates, evaluates and optimizes the whole production process in a computer virtual environment based on the relevant data of the whole product life cycle, and further extends to the whole product life cycle. Digital chemical plants need to have a high level of lean and automation, at the same time, have a strong and complete information system, connect inside and outside the factory, and flexibly adjust all links of production. More importantly, agile organizations and talents driven by value creation are needed to give full play to the maximum efficiency of hardware and software of digital chemical plants

with the new digital chemical plant, while expanding production capacity, enterprises can almost not be restricted by existing factories, systems and personnel, and directly design and build the most advanced factories and systems from scratch. However, we also found that there are two major challenges for enterprises to build new digital chemical industry 9 and electronic universal experimental machine plants with more than 10 language switching functions. First, investment efficiency is low. Generally speaking, the efficiency of China's investment in new plants in the past few decades has been low, especially in high-tech and highly automated chemical plants, where failure cases are common. Secondly, it is difficult to implement. Compared with advanced countries, the lean and automation level of Chinese enterprises still lags far behind, and the implementation of digital chemical plants is difficult. As far as we know, although many enterprises are considering or even planning to build new digital chemical plants, it is not clear how to implement them

based on McKinsey's practice at home and abroad and relevant professional knowledge and insights, we summarize the concept of "integration of industrialization and industrialization and people-oriented" that should be followed when building a new digital chemical plant. "Integration of automation and informatization" means accelerating the integration of automation and informatization. "People oriented" deeply recognizes the value of people: all innovation comes from people (teams), and all products are ultimately for people (customers). How to achieve "people-oriented"? Internally, it is an incentive method and organizational form to meet the needs of contemporary employees. Externally, how to better create value for customers and achieve win-win results with the ecosystem. Specifically, enterprises should start with five key measures to build a new digital factory

five steps to build a new digital factory

to build an efficient digital factory, we need to start from five aspects: the overall design, the supporting selection of software and hardware, the reform of organization personnel, digital performance management and the construction of ecosystem

1. Design the overall path map

the overall path map outlines the general direction of the new digital chemical plant, which includes the selection of software and hardware, the design of organizational structure, the training and selection of personnel, and digital performance management. Its design should consider the gap between the current digital level of the enterprise and the future digital needs

McKinsey's "digital manufacturing compass" tool can be used to judge the current digital level of enterprises (see the figure below). We have been widely used in other parts of the world and also tried to apply it to Chinese manufacturing enterprises, and the effect is also satisfactory

then, sort out the functional requirements of various workshops and production lines of the digital factory for the digital manufacturing system. Through the overall consideration of the nine functional modules of the factory information management system, production planning, work order execution, personnel management, material management, quality management, process management, equipment management, energy management, we can master the future digital needs of the enterprise

2. Choose appropriate digital technology and implement it, easy first, difficult first, large first, small second

first, analyze the integration framework of the digital system to ensure the integrity and effectiveness of the digital system. Generally speaking, digital chemical plants need a set of interconnected digital management systems, including ERP system (Enterprise Resource Planning System), MES system (Manufacturing Execution System) and PLM system (product lifecycle management system)

second, 2 points 1 brand commercial computer; Analyze the feasibility and importance of various functional requirements of the digital system, and sort the high, medium and low levels in two dimensions. This process should involve as many stakeholders as possible, especially hardware and software suppliers

finally, according to the order of feasibility and importance, formulate the implementation path of digital system implementation, and clarify the short-term, medium-term and long-term development goals

3. Build an agile organization and select excellent talents

first, in order to ensure the efficient operation of the new factory, we need to build an agile organization. It can make information and decision-making flow faster up and down the organization, make the strategy and structure keep up with the rapidly changing market changes, and employees have a stronger ability to interpret information and solve complex problems. The agile transformation of traditional organizations needs to build the stable backbone and dynamic ability of the organization from three aspects: organizational structure, process and personnel. Secondly, do a good job in the selection of key core positions (general managers). External and internal selection can be adopted to walk on two legs. The selection of general managers starts from the characteristics required by the enterprise and the new factory, and designs a reasonable and effective assessment and selection system. Internal selection can be based on performance and leadership

4. digital performance management

traditional performance management is difficult to completely correspond the key performance indicators of the top and bottom, and it is impossible to feed back and correct them in real time. Digital performance management decomposes key indicators layer by layer to achieve unity and transparency from top to bottom, and updates them regularly. Under the digital performance management system, everyone can directly see the operation of the production line to achieve real-time feedback and remote problem-solving

5. Build an ecosystem and fully mobilize all forces

the core of a digital chemical plant is to realize the end-to-end interconnection of the basic requirement that the winter room temperature in the heating area of the whole value chain reach 18 ℃. Therefore, enterprises must build an ecosystem with the help of various forces or become a member of the ecosystem, and fully mobilize the resources of themselves, external consulting institutions, equipment suppliers, technology research and development institutions, government agencies and other parties

with the slap of the tide of industry 4.0 and the encouragement of the current government's "made in China 2025" strategy, digital chemical plants have become a key step to achieve leapfrog innovation, which is of great significance to China's industrial upgrading. Building a new digital factory is an option, but low investment efficiency and difficult implementation are two major challenges that cannot be ignored. We suggest that enterprises should take the "integration of industrialization and industrialization and people-oriented" as the concept, and start with five key measures to build a new digital chemical plant, namely, the overall design, the supporting selection of software and hardware, the reform of organizational personnel, digital performance management and the construction of ecosystem

in the first half of 2016, a vehicle manufacturing enterprise in China built a new digital factory from scratch, supplemented by planning, operation and organizational transformation. The enterprise has more than ten factories in China, and its products are exported to the United States, Australia, the Middle East, Africa and other places. Its scale and technology are leading in the industry. In order to maintain its leading edge in the industry and further expand the global market, the enterprise invested in the new digital parts factory, and took it as a model factory to lead the digital transformation of the whole enterprise. In order to undertake the important task of industry 4.0 model factory and become the world's best supplier of vehicle parts with multiple varieties and small batches, the digital factory must invest appropriate automation equipment in hardware, flexible digital software PLM and MES in software, transform to agile in organization, and form excellent digital ability in talent

after several months of efforts, the enterprise has successfully completed the design of the digital chemical plant, the construction of the top-level structure of the organization, the selection of core talents and the management plan of digital performance. It has reached a consensus with the system supplier and launched the first phase of the plant climbing plan. According to the calculation, the digital manufacturing system is expected to increase the equipment utilization rate of the factory by 15%, and then bring cost savings of more than 10million yuan per year to the enterprise

the author sincerely thanks his colleagues Zhao he and Xu PEI for their contributions to this article

Wang Sanqiang is McKinsey's global managing partner and vehicle industry expert, and is resident in Shenzhen Branch

Hou Wenhao is a global senior expert of McKinsey and the head of digital operation business in China, resident in Shanghai Branch

Mr. Tim swinger, McKinsey project manager and global business manager of Honeywell advanced fiber and composite business department, said that he is an expert in operation and organization and is resident in Shanghai Branch

Zhan Haixu is a senior analyst of McKinsey and is based in Shanghai Branch

this article is selected from the fall 2016 quarterly of McKinsey Quarterly