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Industry 4.0 for Commercial Kitchen Equipment
Many are investing in Digital Manufacturing, but it is often difficult to understand what systems to put in place or what priorities should be.
The customer is an American manufacturer of commercial grade food equipment including pressure fryers, deep fryers, ovens and rotisseries. They are a leader in the industry and are the primary vendor for KFC, Wendy's, McDonald's, Chick-fil-A and Chicken Licken.
In the last 50 years, a digital revolution has transformed the fast food industry. But the digital revolution has impacted more than just the customer side of the fast food experience. As the food culture changed, so did the demands of the commercial kitchen. This created a whole new set of challenges for the manufacturers of kitchen equipment. One such challenge is related to the concept of engineered-to-order, where the consumer drives the design of the product. We are familiar with this idea when it comes to shopping online for cars, shoes, clothing, etc. This can also be applied to commercial kitchen equipment. Restaurants can now customize everything about the equipment they order, which means that manufacturers must be flexible and precise in how they produce.
This was an obstacle faced by our customer, an American manufacturer and global supplier of commercial kitchen equipment to some of the biggest and most well-recognized fast food chains on the planet. By serving over 80 different countries, they offer 134 configurable products that result in over 1 million product options. One million product options mean an enormous amount of product data that must be available and ready to be sent to the manufacturing floor when their customer places their order.
The customer partnered with our U.S. team for an Industry 4.0 assessment. Our experts executed an in-depth analysis of all of their business groups, IT systems and current processes. Our assessment provided recommendations on how to best manage all of the product data by integrating their customer portal with their data management system. This provided the customer with a synchronized product configuration tool to streamline communication and facilitate the exchange of data from sales all the way to production. Thanks to the Industry 4.0 roadmap and implementation plan delivered by IndX, the customer now has the knowledge, tools and infrastructure they need to bridge the gap between their customer, the engineering and their manufacturing floor.
Many companies today are investing in Digital Manufacturing to help realize increasing yields and quality of products, reduced speed-to-market, improved manufacturing efficiencies and consistent regulatory compliance. But it is often difficult to understand what systems should be put in place, what priorities should be and if such systems will really help drive business value which is in line with a company’s short and long-term visions. A partnership with IndX can provide guidance for companies trying to navigate the digital landscape across different systems, business units and technologies. Our team delivers the power of the Digital Thread for Industry 4.0. Leveraging our unique experience implementing and integrating the entire spectrum of digital tools for manufacturing, our team facilitates the digital adoption, implementation, integration and transformation journey for manufacturers across all industries worldwide.
