Digital technologies are transforming industrial production processes from design and engineering to manufacturing. BCG helps harness the full potential of Industry 4.0: greater flexibility in processes, increased productivity and revenue, and higher-quality production.
BCG’s Industry 4.0 consulting embraces a holistic approach: we work across all production sites to ensure that everything from technology infrastructure to governance and competencies are integrated and aligned. Our focus is helping our clients build “factories of the future”—fully digital plants that deploy Industry 4.0 technologies and digital supply chain to achieve results that are sustainable, consistent, and scalable.
“Industry 4.0” refers to the fourth industrial revolution, which affects every manufacturing domain and comprises advanced manufacturing technologies that capture, optimize, and deploy data.
Put simply, Industry 4.0 makes factories “smart.” Such technologies as the industrial Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and cyber-physical systems interact seamlessly, communicating and adjusting continuously. Businesses that fully understand and capture the value of these advantages will be best positioned to take on the challenges that lie ahead.
BCG’s Industry 4.0 consulting services take a holistic, sustainable, and scalable approach. We deliver by deploying proprietary tools and methodologies developed in our Innovation Center for Operations infrastructure. These offerings cover every manufacturing domain and comprise advanced manufacturing technologies that are empowered through data progression, storage, and optimization.
We help clients address the full range of issues associated with factories of the future:
Several of BCG’s proven proprietary tools and methodologies focus on this fourth industrial revolution.
Our Innovation Center for Operations is a global network of capabilities the includes state-of-the-art model factories and operations consulting. The center provides immersion, experimentation, and training on all topics related to Industry 4.0.
MOBILE LABS
BCG can also bring the technologies to you—experience the industrial revolution 4.0 anywhere in the world with interactive workshops, thanks to our mobile labs.
PROPRIETARY RESOURCES
As a BCG client, you gain access to a variety of our proprietary data collections:
By partnering with BCG, our clients achieve concrete and quantifiable gains. In an Industry 4.0 consulting engagement with us, these benefits can include:
The company identified data-driven solutions that not only boost efficiency but can be converted into systemic change and scaled throughout the global business.
A global car seat manufacturer was able to reduce the amount of defective parts found in factories by 25% after BCG analyzed over 200 gigabytes of data using advanced analytic tools.
Using Analytics to Improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness
A global manufacturer of food and beverages turned to BCG to improve its overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). BCG used advanced analytics to deliver a 10-point lift in OEE.
Setting Up a Greenfield Factory
A consumer goods company was relocating its production. By working with BCG’s Innovation Center for Operations, the company set up an Industry 4.0 greenfield factory that slashed conversion costs by 13%, enhanced material flow, and optimized warehouse efficiency.
Combining distributed and additive manufacturing mitigates supply chain risks by enabling fully digital interactions, better economics for producing small quantities, and flexible capacity.
Producers can address critical challenges by designing flexible factories, sharing assets, and decoupling factory ownership and use.
By leveraging data and advanced analytics, companies can provide better products and services, optimize their value chains, and maximize return on capital. Effective data-sharing applications are essential to define key success factors and to enable manufacturers to derive value from their data.
The technologies needed to overcome many longstanding barriers to shop floor automation—and the skills needed to use them in combination—are finally available.
