Resilient and AI-optimized supply chains
Manufacturers continue to grapple with the demands for more resilient as well as more sustainable supply chains. Bob Buttermore, SVP and Chief Supply Chain Officer highlighted how Rockwell Automation was creating resilience in its supply chain by making the internal structure integrated and coordinated. As part of this there are three criteria of focus:
Design resiliency – product lines have been redesigned with redundancy in mind; new products have to be resilient.
Supplier resiliency – inventory planning, redundancy, and long-term supply agreements
Capacity resiliency – equipment and people investments, including duplicating manufacturing of products in different regions.
However, with a range of regulations soon to be in place requiring visibility across the supply chain of emissions and ecodesign, through the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rule 2023 for emissions reporting, Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) where products sold in the EU must comply with certain eco-design requirements, manufacturers must consider sustainability alongside resilience.
Beyond just their own supply chain efforts, Brian Shepherd (SVP, Software and Control) explained how Rockwell is supporting its customers in increasing resilience and agility. This included how they are leveraging AI powered solutions for supply chain. In 2022, demand planning was introduced into Plex (a Rockwell MES solution) utilizing machine learning, which Shepherd said has increased demand forecasting accuracy by 5% to 30%.
The next step will be to introduce finite scheduling capability – which consider capacity and resource constraints when planning manufacturing. Alongside the acquisition of Clearpath Robotics it will be able to optimize the movement of material through a factory, through AI-powered smarter routing, providing greater visibility across the entire manufacturing process.
Finite Scheduler, an out-of-the-box solution due for release in 2024, will be integrated in Plex with FactoryTalk ProductionCenter and will be targeted at discrete and hybrid industries. It has already been introduced in seven of Rockwell’s LV Motor Control Center (MCC) factories as a proof of concept.
Most complex routings – dealing with scheduling bringing assemblies together to deliver to customer requirement to the data will help fine tune and automate three areas:
Productivity – faster flow of material through the factory
Reduce Inventory – as lag times are reduced
Customer service – better delivery data, reliability, and improved lead times
The workforce is one of the biggest challenges in building resilience into supply chain. The solution will also extend to a workforce tie-in, learning from what has happened in the past to optimize future schedule.
Supply chain resilience has taken greater prominence in a post-Covid world particularly within industries that had been dependent on China in their supply chain. Legislation such as the Inflation Reduction Act, a U.S. act to drive the domestic clean tech market in North America, is an example that is influencing investment into new automotive manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and across the border to Mexico. This pivot by organizations and the encouragement by government to begin reshoring, shortening supply chains has grown in prominence. Investment into digital tools have started to emerge, solutions such as product data mining, a digital twin of applications – (ERP and production) which interrogates data to find weak points to be address at the product level to make a supply chain more resilient have been seen in the marketplace.
Adding planning capabilities within Rockwell’s suite of solutions will be welcomed by many manufacturers, and at facilities that don’t have these digital tools or are reliant on cumbersome ERP systems to manage advanced planning on the shop floor. Demand planning, capacity planning and scheduling powered by AI will have a significant impact on profitability and the supply chain. The introduction of Finite Scheduler is an interesting development that can add significant value, particularly in complex discrete manufacturing industries.
