Future of

Industrial Machinery
Manufacturing
01
02

03

04
Autodesk makes software for people who make
things. If you’ve ever driven a high-performance car,
admired a towering skyscraper, used a smartphone,
or watched a great film, chances are you’ve
experienced what millions of Autodesk customers
are doing with our software.

Autodesk is leading the way to the future of

making, allowing manufacturers to meet growing
market demands by delivering better products
faster, at lower cost and with less waste. With a
comprehensive design and manufacturing portfolio,
Autodesk provides advanced technology that
automates and connects workflows for end-to-end
product development.

As design and manufacturing converge, we equip

companies with an integrated set of desktop and
cloud-based tools that brings together everything from
design, engineering and simulation to collaboration,
CAM, additive manufacturing and factory floor
management. This unified platform breaks down
the silos between disciplines, enabling more agile
work among engineering teams and empowering
manufacturers to become more competitive.

To find out more visit autodesk.com/fom

Publisher Flavia Brown Contributors

Project manager Georgie Cauthery
Rich McEachran Ben Rossi
Editor Peter Archer Freelance journalist and copywriter, Formerly editorial director at Vitesse
Designers Elisabetta Calabritto, Grant Chapman, Celina Lucey covering start-ups, technology and Media and editor of Information Age
innovation. His work has appeared and Computer News Middle East, he
Publication sponsored by Head of production Justyna O’Connell in The Guardian, The Telegraph and writes for national newspapers and
Digital marketing manager Kyri Rousou Professional Engineering magazine. business publications.

Although this publication is funded through advertising and sponsorship, all editorial is without bias and sponsored features are clearly
labelled. For an upcoming schedule, partnership inquiries or feedback, please call +44 (0)20 3428 5230 or email info@raconteur.net
Contents
This report explores how industrial machinery manufacturers
can harness the convergence of design and manufacturing, to
unlock new levels of creativity and gain a competitive edge

04
Future of product design
06
Digitising your workforce
How manufacturers are Preparing your talent for
unlocking new possibilities Industry 4.0

08 10
How manufacturers can Upskilling to fill the
achieve built-in agility manufacturing skills gap
Adapting operating Could the solution lie in
models for better CX your existing workforce?

12 14
Automating to upskill Servitisation gives
your workforce manufacturers
The opportunities breathing space to grow
created by automation New revenue streams to
drive growth
 4 FUTURE OF INDUSTRIAL MACHINERY MANUFACTURING

DESIGN

Future of product design

Whether it’s drilling equipment
on a construction site, combine
harvesters gathering crops or
an offshore turbine harvesting
wind energy, gearboxes are
the important component
that helps deliver torque and
increases the rotational speed
of industrial machinery

Rich McEachran

he more precisely designed a gear-

T box is, the greater its operational effi-
ciency and the better it will perform.
Thanks to Industry 4.0 and the technologi-
cal advances that this digital transformation
has brought with it, the designing and manu-
facturing of gearboxes and other machinery
parts can now be improved by digital twin-
ning. The process involves mapping a physi-
cal asset to a digital platform and using sen-
sors to monitor the efficiency, condition and
real-time status of the asset.
In turn, this can inform manufacturers
on what design decisions to take, enhancing
future product development and extending
product life cycle of existing products. durable products and higher customer satis-
“Digital twinning promotes many things, faction are likely to follow.”
but one of the most important is collabora-
tion,” says Ben Salama, industry X.0 lead for Optimising design of assets’ life cycle
UK and Ireland at Accenture. Industries heavily reliant on equipment and
“Manufacturers can now simulate the machinery require assets to be able to work
behaviour of components, while co-ordina- at full capacity and, sometimes, around the
tion with engineers means designers can clock; any faults or breakdowns can affect
improve production and streamline work operational output and quality. Through
processes. They can collaborate, regardless digital twinning, manufacturers can both
of location, to find the small things that have tweak designs and monitor assets so they
a big impact. And as a result, savings in pro- can predict when any parts, such as the gear-
duction costs, lower maintenance on more box, might need replacing. Thus, engineers
 5 FUTURE OF INDUSTRIAL MACHINERY MANUFACTURING

can carry out proactive, rather than reactive,

repair work.
Norway-based DNV GL, a world-leading
energy certification body, has recently devel-
Through digital twinning,
oped WindGEMINI. The wind turbine digital manufacturers can
twin analyses vast amounts of data to provide both tweak designs and

26BN
prognostic analytics and remaining life esti-
monitor assets so they
mates of both the turbine as a whole and its
various components. $ can predict when any
“The advantage of the data gathered is
two-fold,” says Francesco Vanni, head of
forecast size of the
global digital twin
parts, such as the gearbox,
WindGEMINI. “Firstly, it allows operators of market by 2025 might need replacing
Grand View
wind farms to make informed operating deci-
Research, 2018
sions and optimise their fleet.
“Secondly, as the information from a digital
twin can be fed back into a turbine’s opera-
tional strategy, it can then feed directly into the Importance of parts management
design process of new wind turbine types. The The cost of maintaining and replacing com-
development process can take into account the ponents of large industrial machinery, and
optimal operation and the design objectives the operational losses associated with the
can shift from individual targets, such as the inevitable downtime, can be compounded by
amount of energy to be captured in a given delays in acquiring the spare parts needed.
period, to optimising the overall cost of energy A key part of future product design will be
throughout the life cycle of the turbine.” servicing and parts management. According
to Andrew Edman, industry manager for
product design, engineering and manufac-
turing at Formlabs, digital twinning may be
Sol Stock/Getty Images

able to accelerate prototyping and cut lead

times, but it won’t be able to bridge the physi-
cal-digital divide unless it’s used in conjunc-
tion with responsive and intuitive fabrica-
tion technologies.
“Additive manufacturing enables manufac-
turers and front-line assembly workers to pro-
vide feedback on the ergonomics of a compo-
nent and then have an improved 3D-printed
part in service the same or next day,” says
Mr Edman. “The time saved in delivering a
component to a customer means manufac-
turers can respond to emerging trends and
customer needs more quickly.”
What this also means is that manufactur-
ers can continuously introduce incremental
improvements to the design of assets, based
on the information fed back to them by the
digital twin, and address any issues in the
process at speed.
With increasing competition, especially
from companies in Asia that can manufac-
ture at a much lower cost, manufacturers in
the UK, Europe and United States need to be
able to get products to market quickly. Digital
twining enables them to do this, while tai-
loring products to specific requirements and
achieving competitive differentiation.
 6 FUTURE OF INDUSTRIAL MACHINERY MANUFACTURING
COMMERCIAL FEATURE

Digitising your
workforce
Manufacturing is on the cusp of a revolution
that will be vital for its future success

Rich McEachran
of LCA Group, which manufactures control
panel boxes for various sectors, including the
o take advantage of the opportuni- pharmaceutical and nuclear industries.
T ties the fourth industrial revolution “Young people are full of ideas on how to
(4IR) presents, manufacturers will do things differently and much more open to
need to ensure their future workforce has the change by embracing new technology.”
skills and expertise required. LCA Group is currently preparing its own
The problem is many younger workers may workforce for the digitisation and automation
view manufacturing as a dying industry that is of manufacturing.
low paid, offers little career progression and Young people’s appetite for digital and their
they may be put off from entering it. tech-savvy skills, compared with previous
Despite the negative impression some may generations, are clearly needed. A study by
hold, the sector can actually offer an abun- Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute found
dance of opportunities. that 4.6 million new jobs will be created in the
“Manufacturing needs a rebrand. The United States alone by 2028 through digitisa-
Claudius Peters

future of the sector is dependent on getting tion and automation. Yet, as it stands, 2.4 mil-
the younger generation engaged at an earlier lion of these jobs will go unfilled because of a
stage,” says Alan Sheppard, managing director skills shortage.
 7 FUTURE OF INDUSTRIAL MACHINERY MANUFACTURING
COMMERCIAL FEATURE

“We, as a sector, need to raise the profile and

image of engineering and manufacturing, and
companies need to step up and make them
accessible,” says Mr Sheppard. “We’ve almost Young people are digitally savvy and can help
become scared of taking on school-leavers and
apprentices, but to safeguard the sector’s future,
the manufacturing sector take advantage of
we need to demonstrate the many career oppor- the opportunities 4IR presents
tunities that can branch out from manufacturing.”

Staying ahead of the curve

As 4IR helps the sector to become more con-
nected, manufacturers will be able to use tech- A success story is Claudius Peters, which
nology to be more efficient and speed up produc- manufactures heavy equipment for cement and
tion by connecting the design and manufacture of coal plants, and is headquartered near Ham-
machinery, allowing product development data to burg in Germany. With the help of technology
flow seamlessly up and down the process. partners, such as Autodesk, the company has
been able to connect and optimise processes
across its departments, and capture data to
make better decisions faster.
Claudius Peters

It has also turned to generative design to

reduce material usage when designing and
manufacturing its clinker cooler, a machine that
cools down molten rock.
According to Thomas Nagel, Claudius Peters’
operations director and chief digital officer, the
long-established business needed to embrace
digitisation to remain competitive.
To stay ahead of the curve, the company has
also been looking to utilise the ingenuity of
Key takeaways younger workers, particularly graduates, by part-
The fourth industrial revolution (4IR) will nering with technical universities in the region.
mean the digitisation of manufacturing “Interns can be change agents,” says Mr Nagel.
supply chains, connecting design and man- With digitisation enabling manufacturing
ufacturing workflows, and speeding up operations to be integrated with intelligent sys-
product development. tems, there is a continuous and seamless flow of
Data captured can be fed back to business data that needs to be analysed to glean insights
dashboards and tools, where it can be ana- and then used to make strategic decisions.
lysed and used to make informed decisions Young people entering the workforce are
on manufacturing strategies. digital natives and well suited to apply appro-
Software will be able to support manufac- priate analytical techniques to work through
turers to design more efficiently. For exam- this real-time data. Thus they can support
ple, by working with Autodesk and using manufacturers in becoming more productive
generative design, Claudius Peters has made and efficient.
part of its clinker coolers 30 to 40 per cent
lighter and at a reduced cost, with savings of
€100 ($123/£97) per part.
To make sense of the data flowing from the
various technologies, however, manufactur-
ers need to ensure their workforce has the Young people are full of
relevant technical skills and expertise.
Young people are digitally savvy and can ideas on how to do things
help the manufacturing sector take advan- differently and much
tage of the opportunities 4IR presents.
more open to change by
embracing new technology
 8 FUTURE OF INDUSTRIAL MACHINERY MANUFACTURING

PE RSONALIS ATION

How manufacturers can

achieve built-in agility
Customers are demanding a personalised experience, but traditional
operating models make it difficult and costly to scale production of
such products, so with new technologies available, manufacturers
must bake more agility into their business

Ben Rossi the customer,” says Graeme Wright, UK and

Ireland chief technology officer for manu-
gility has always been important, but facturing at Fujitsu. “But having the right
A has never been higher up the agenda infrastructure to be agile and implement
for manufacturers. Consumers no new ways of working is the key to delivering
longer accept that a product will be available on this engagement.”
soon. Customer expectations have changed
3D printing

81%
and consumers want to feel they can have
what they want, when they want it and in the Meanwhile, traditional norms around pro-
format they expect. duction minimums, supply chains and time
Successful manufacturers understand the to market are being upended by new additive
need for a good customer experience, but they of organisations manufacturing capabilities. “How products
expect to compete
risk losing this as they develop. The trouble is based mainly on are conceived and designed can now link
many evolve to be big more than they evolve CX in 2019 almost seamlessly with an individual cus-
to be smart. The result is a system constrained Gartner, 2019 tomer experience, with hundreds of thou-
by immense supply chains and distribution sands of components produced every day
networks, as well as fixed equipment and per- to different customer specifications,” says
sonnel costs that necessitate large production George Brasher, UK and Ireland managing
minimums. The transition from prototype to director at HP.
full scale in traditional manufacturing is a Long gone are the days of just mass prod-
costly commitment and refinements are diffi- ucts; companies offering a more personalised
cult to make. customer experience are growing faster and
Manufacturers are also held back by legacy achieving greater profitability. This level of
systems and organisational structures. Many diversity, agility and specificity in manufac-
are countering this by building in agility turing is unprecedented and the line between
through small, autonomous functions which prototyping and full-scale production is
they can swap out and replace as needed, becoming less distinct. The design process
making them leaner and more flexible by can now be seamlessly integrated rather than
optimising the end-to-end orchestration of precede a long procurement and manufactur-
the business and individual functions. ing process, allowing companies confidently
“There are new ways to engage the cus- to modify production at scale.
tomer, particularly when there is a complex Increasing return on investment will require
supply chain between the manufacturer and a renewed focus among manufacturers on
 9 FUTURE OF INDUSTRIAL MACHINERY MANUFACTURING

Westend61/Getty Images
improving customer satisfaction, reducing
churn and increasing brand loyalty. Failing to
respond to market changes, by not adapting
fast enough if a competitor introduces a more
Those that survive and thrive in the future
popular variation of a product, for example, is of manufacturing won’t be the largest, the
sure to lose customers.
fastest or the strongest, they’ll be the or-
Incremental changes ganisations that adapted best to change
To build agility into their existing business
models, manufacturers need to focus on pro-
moting incremental changes, whether on a
brownfield production line, physical plant
or around supervising IT and operational systems,” says Martin Walder, vice president
technology systems. Responding quickly to of industry at Schneider Electric.
changing demands requires production lines Agility has always been a differentiator in
that can be configured rapidly. the manufacturing sector and that will only
“The simplest way to do this is by introduc- become more apparent as technology contin-
ing flexible robots on existing lines rather ues to move and evolve at a rapid pace. Those
than fixed machines, changing manual that survive and thrive in the future of man-
adjusters, deploying smart sensors on to lines, ufacturing won’t be the largest, the fastest or
and introducing manufacturing execution the strongest, they’ll be the organisations that
and manufacturing operations management adapted best to change.
 10 FUTURE OF INDUSTRIAL MACHINERY MANUFACTURING

UPSKILLING TO FILL
THE MANUFACTURING
SKILLS GAP
Despite a widely reported manufacturing skills gap, the answer may lie in the existing workforce

THE MANUFACTURING SKILLS

1
OUTLOOK MAY SEEM BLEAK…

Growing shortage of skilled manufacturing workers

JOB OPENINGS HIRES

300%

200%

100%
Gap

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Microsoft, 2019

2.69m
…WITH MANUFACTURING JOBS
2
REMAINING UNFILLED FOR LONGER

Average time to fill an open manufacturing job

manufacturing jobs left open from retirements

Deloitte/Manufacturing Institute, 2018

70 days
2015
93 days
2018
1.96m
additional workers may be needed
from 2017 to 2028 to meet the
growing consumer goods demand

Deloitte/Manufacturing Institute, 2018 Deloitte/Manufacturing Institute, 2018

 11 FUTURE OF INDUSTRIAL MACHINERY MANUFACTURING

HOWEVER, THE MISSING TALENT MAY LIE IN

3
BUSINESSES’ CURRENT HUMAN CAPITAL, WITH
THE MAJORITY OF MANUFACTURING EMPLOYEES
WILLING TO ENHANCE THEIR SKILLSETS

Employees ready to learn new skills or completely retrain to remain employable

83%
26%
no

74%
yes

of hiring costs can be saved

by reskilling internal hires
PwC, 2018 Deloitte, 2018

41%
40%
WHILE THE POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF
4 Equal mix hiring
UPSKILLING ARE INCREASINGLY CLEAR, Mainly by and retraining
MANUFACTURERS ARE STILL NOT retraining
PLACING ENOUGH EMPHASIS ON IT

How organisations feel they can best resolve their skills

gap over the next give years

3%
Only by
hiring

1%
Only by 15%
retraining

Mainly by
hiring

McKinsey, 2018
12 FUTURE OF INDUSTRIAL MACHINERY MANUFACTURING

TA LE NT

Automating to upskill
your workforce
Armies of robots are taking over factories and manufacturing
plants around the world, and workers are being displaced as a
result, or so headlines and statistics would have us believe

Rich McEachran energy and utilities at Cognizant, auto-

mation presents endless opportunities. At
onsultancy firm PwC estimates the the same time, its complexity will require
C UK’s manufacturing sector could lose manufacturers to equip their workforce
a quarter of its current jobs by 2035. with the skills needed to integrate auto-
Meanwhile, an often-cited study from Oxford Uni- mation into their manufacturing opera-
versity predicts 47 per cent of jobs in the United tions seamlessly.
States could be lost within the next 20 to 25 years. Mr Satyavolu gives the example of intel-
However, it’s not all doom and gloom. As ligent systems and a web of connected
a 2017 white paper by global consultancy sensors that work in tandem with robotic
Cognizant highlighted, there may be some programmes. To make sense of the various
job losses, but the traditional ones that will technologies and the data being generated,
remain will be enhanced by automation. manufacturers will need access to a diverse
There will be new roles created too. pool of expertise and, as such, new roles are
According to Prasad Satyavolu, chief dig- likely to include digital architects, systems
ital officer for manufacturing, logistics, integrators and strategic advisers.
13 FUTURE OF INDUSTRIAL MACHINERY MANUFACTURING

Moving upstairs

Hero Images/Getty Images

While some of these roles will be designated for

46%
new hires with specific backgrounds, existing
employees, who currently spend most of their
time on the factory or manufacturing plant in
a hands-on role, may find themselves moving of manufacturers are
upstairs. Rather than focusing their efforts on increasing training
manual quality control and fixing faults, for budgets to address
the skills gap
example, automation will mean faults can be
Education Endowment
identified and prevented through advanced
Foundation, 2019
maintenance, leaving employees to focus
more on data quality management and long-
term strategic planning to achieve competi-
tive differentiation.
“It will be crucial that manufacturers
encourage continuous learning so workers
know how to interact and work alongside
intelligent machines, rather than fearing
them,” says Mr Satyavolu.
Andrew Edman, industry manager for
product design, engineering and manufac-
turing at Formlabs, adds that upskilling
employees will be imperative if manufactur-
ers are to take advantage of automation. It MxD
will also help them to become agile. Complexity of automation will mean that a
“When teams can access technology such single manufacturer will no longer be able
as 3D printers, for instance, they can quickly to meet the demands of an increasingly
iterate, test and gather feedback; it provides connected sector on its own. It will have to
rapid product development cycles,” says Mr look beyond the traditional ways of doing
Edman. “What’s more, this feedback creates things and pool cross-sector expertise,
a repeatable framework that allows manufac- including from academic research.
turing teams to consistently build products MxD, previously known as the Digital
that meet user needs.” Manufacturing and Design Innovation
Institute, has put together a blueprint,
The Digital Manufacturing and Design
Jobs Taxonomy and Success Profiles,
to help manufacturers in their hiring
choices. Ultimately, by defining the roles
they should be creating, MxD hopes it can
help the sector fill any skills gap and be
Rather than focusing their efforts on automaton ready.
manual quality control and fixing Research conducted by MxD identifies
a broad set of 165 potential roles that will
faults, automation will mean faults help bridge the current workforce and the
can be identified and prevented type of employees manufacturers will need
in the future to thrive. Among these roles,
through advanced maintenance, 20 were picked out as success profiles, the
leaving employees to focus more on main roles that manufacturers should be

data quality management and long- training and upskilling their staff for.
These profiles include digital-twin archi-
term strategic planning tect, machine-learning specialist, predic-
tive-maintenance system specialist and
manufacturing cybersecurity strategist.
14 FUTURE OF INDUSTRIAL MACHINERY MANUFACTURING

C OMPE TITI V E A DVA NTAGE

Servitisation gives
manufacturers breathing
space to grow
With margins being squeezed in a challenging business environment,
servitisation is providing much-needed relief to manufacturers as a
model that enables them to design efficiencies into their supply chain
and drive growth with new revenue streams

Relational mindset
Ben Rossi
“Manufacturers need to move from a trans-
actional focus to a more relational mindset,”
ffering value-added services alongside says Rafi Billurcu, who leads Infosys Consult-
O traditional products, known as servi- ing’s manufacturing practice in Europe. “This
tisation, has helped manufacturers will require continuous nurturing of customer
produce new revenue streams, slash costs, boost relationships, which itself may entail a shift in

14%
customer relationships and move ahead of com- culture and organisation. For example, man-
petitors. It now makes up 14 per cent of Apple’s ufacturers need to ensure they have call cen-
revenue and more than half at Rolls-Royce. Boe- tres and other customer touchpoints in place,
ing is looking to grow its services revenue from of Apple’s revenue make the necessary adjustments to informa-
$8 billion to $50 billion in the next decade and is made up by tion systems, accounting practices, and risk
servitisation
in some cases servitisation programmes have and compliance requirements.”
Apple, 2018
evolved into entirely new companies, such as Design and manufacturing processes are
General Electric’s launch of GE Digital. increasingly converging as manufacturers
The concept of value-added services is seek new efficiencies in their supply chain that
hardly new, but technology advances have help enable the best servitisation experience
multiplied the servitisation opportunity. In and allow them to build a longer-term rela-
the aerospace sector, manufacturers are using tionship with their customers. End-users are
the internet of things to add predictive main- more likely to develop a higher degree of trust
tenance capabilities. Chemicals companies with manufacturers that consistently provide
are deploying consumption-driven replenish- a great quality of service, which discourages
ment and supply planning, and energy firms them from looking to the competition.
are developing managed asset maintenance Servitisation is a gradual and incremen-
programmes based on huge volumes of data. tal process. Many start with an aftermar-
It’s not just technology that is driving this ket spares-and-repairs parts service before
trend. Customers are hungry for service-ori- adding break-fix repair services, where they
ented solutions, and servitisation provides a reactively deliver services. Eventually, they
way for manufacturers to deliver differentia- add annual maintenance contracts, which
tion from competitors with new services that increases the amount of revenue flowing from
address their specific pain points, while also each initial sale. To sell a profitable mainte-
reducing costs, lowering lead times and ena- nance contract, the manufacturer has to know
bling better flexibility and responsiveness. what the cost of maintaining the product or
15 FUTURE OF INDUSTRIAL MACHINERY MANUFACTURING

asset will be, so it is only a minor step to then

selling the entire life cycle as a service.

Higher margins
Servitisation is the new competitive
This has made manufacturing a higher-mar- battleground on which manufacturers
gin business and enabled manufacturers to
focus more on the outcome they are working
win or lose their reputation
towards with their customers, rather than
simply exchanging money for a product. The
design of a product can also influence what it
will cost to service it over its life cycle, which
means industries with aftermarket service a lower risk profile. Manufacturers will be able
revenue streams are putting more thought into to sell based on their base of satisfied custom-
serviceability and reliability in product design. ers and the real-time performance of estab-
“Servitisation will make it easier for cus- lished equipment.”
tomers to purchase products and assets in Servitisation is the new competitive battle-
both consumer and industrial settings,” says ground on which manufacturers win or lose
Antony Bourne, global industry director for their reputation. Those that make a success of
industrial manufacturing at IFS. it will be able to respond much faster to chang-
“It will also help manufacturers differen- ing customer needs and will develop a greater
tiate themselves on the ability to help their understanding of how to deliver the value
customers reach their goals and intended their customers crave. With customer expec-
outcomes. If one manufacturer sells only the tations changing rapidly, gaining this kind
product and another sells through servitisa- of knowledge will be the difference between
tion, the servitised manufacturer will present succeeding and failing in the years ahead.