Why Should Manufacturer Provide Smart Product Abd Services
HEIDELBERG HONEYWELL, AND EATON: USING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TO BUILD SMART PRODUCTS AND SERVICES Why should manufacturing companies build smart products and provide smart services? What business benefits can they gain? Provide several examples beyond those discussed in this case. Manufacturing companies should build smart products and provides smart services are to enjoy long-term profits. It is because any industrial manufacturer that has not awakened to the fact that it must become a service business is in serious peril today. Sadly, there are many such businesses—companies that still think of themselves as builders of things and that state their gross margins, operating profits, and other measures of success solely in terms of “the product.” But even their more enlightened competitors, the ones who’ve begun to wrap valuable services around their products and, in some cases, profit directly from those services, are enjoying only a temporary advantage. They may be improving their customer relationships by taking on various burdens such as maintenance and replenishment of supplies, but that will get them only so far. A select group of companies is already upping the ante. Soon, it will not be enough for a company to offer services; it will have to provide “smart services.”
Furthermore, Manufacturing companies should build smart products and provides smart services are to Do What Human Cannot Do. Because it is impractical to deploy humans to gather and analyze the real-time field data required, smart services depend on “machine intelligence.” In a smart services environment, reliable and blindingly fast microprocessors do what they are very good at doing: digesting billions of data points, talking to one another about the data, controlling one another based upon the state of the data—all in a matter of nanoseconds. Humans cannot do this, nor should they; this incessant stream of business information should be invisible to people. At the same time,
Furthermore, Manufacturing companies should build smart products and provides smart services are to Do What Human Cannot Do. Because it is impractical to deploy humans to gather and analyze the real-time field data required, smart services depend on “machine intelligence.” In a smart services environment, reliable and blindingly fast microprocessors do what they are very good at doing: digesting billions of data points, talking to one another about the data, controlling one another based upon the state of the data—all in a matter of nanoseconds. Humans cannot do this, nor should they; this incessant stream of business information should be invisible to people. At the same time,