Engineers emboldened by digital transformation community

Over the past year, I’ve spent a lot of time speaking with manufacturers about their digital transformation projects. They all have very different stories to tell because their application needs are distinct. But whether it’s a food manufacturer, a beverage producer, an automaker or a machine builder, they all have one thing in common: The need for community.

Turns out, digital transformation can be a lonely road where engineers are given a directive to “go digital,” and then left on their own to figure it out. This exact scenario is happening at a large CPG that makes many things (including toothpaste and dish detergent), where an individual in charge of plant systems told me he needs help sorting out where to start, what technologies to use, and who to involve in the process. “Having a connection with people to bounce ideas off, or just understand what others have done to solve common digital transformation problems, would be helpful.”

Here at Design World, we want to help our audience figure it out. To do that, we are increasing our coverage of digital transformation technologies, trends, and use cases, much of which can be found on our sister site, Engineering.com. This is a great first step for engineers researching specific topics or technologies such as the industrial internet of things (IIoT), artificial intelligence (AI) or cybersecurity, for example. As part of our coverage, we’ll also include case studies to provide that valuable real-world perspective from your engineering peers.

Do you know what’s even more valuable? Hearing those real-world experiences first-hand.

Attendees of Design World’s first annual Digital Transformation Forum, happening May 1-2, 2024 in Boston, will get that personal storytelling from some major manufacturers. Two of those in attendance include Sikorsky Lockheed Martin and ALTA Refrigeration, both sharing technology implementations that solve engineering and business problems while optimizing the way they work.

Sikorsky’s digital transformation story

At Sikorsky, which makes commercial and military aircraft, including the best-in-class Black Hawk helicopter, there was a need to correct years of manually setting thresholds that have contributed to alert fatigue on operators. They needed a way to streamline actionable alerts in a busy production environment. Sikorsky, together with technology partner Strategic Maintenance Solutions, built a machine learning tool that automates the threshold-setting process for industrial metric data and delivers the right information to the right user at the right time. One of the key takeaways from this session is that you don’t have to be a data scientist to take action and find value with AI tools.

ALTA Refrigeration will outline a very different scenario that includes the adoption of an edge control architecture and the message queuing telemetry transport (MQTT) machine-to-machine communication protocol to completely change its business model. ALTA has been designing and installing refrigeration systems across the United States for more than 45 years. For a long time, they were large, custom-designed systems that used a central machine room to deliver refrigerant to various facility areas through long, overhead piping runs. Now, with modular refrigeration control units, ALTA can monitor the entire install base in minutes and energy usage per unit. When an alarm occurs, the system creates an interactive timeline of events before and after. Using data analytics with remote monitoring improves serviceability, scalability, customer support and operational efficiency.

Connecting your digital transformation community

Those are just two examples of the presentations at this live event. Attendees will also be able to interact with thought leaders from Intellic Integration, MIT, Deloitte, Siemens, PTC, and more. Networking is encouraged via a welcome reception and a mix and mingle with attendees from the two co-located events, the Robotics Summit and DeviceTalks Boston, to provide ample opportunity to meet engineers from other industries.

The forum is where discussions exchange freely and new connections are made. More importantly, it’s the start of your new digital transformation community. If you’re an engineer, technology decision-maker or an executive on a journey to modernize manufacturing, you need to be here. The inspiration from your peers will lead to new ideas for your organization and, ultimately, innovation that will make your organization more competitive in the market.