ROKLive 2021

Smart Industry Awards

Discover how these leading companies successfully envisioned, planned and executed the transformation of their organizations with digital and disruptive technologies.

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Smart Industry Transformational Leadership Awards

ROKLive is honored to be part of the second annual Smart Industry Transformational Leadership Awards. Learn more about what these leading companies have accomplished and why Smart Industry is recognizing their achievements.

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Smart Industry Transformational Leadership Awards

Smart Industry is pleased to announce the winners of its second annual Transformational Leadership Awards, created to identify and honor those individuals and organizations leading the way to Industry 4.0. This year’s winners, chosen from across the global industrial landscape, have successfully envisioned, planned and executed the digital transformation (DX) of one or more aspects of their business through the application of digital and disruptive technologies.

The Transformational Leadership award categories and selection criteria are aligned to reflect today's most critical business transformation challenges. They recognize the importance of executive vision and organizational communication; the ability to build talent, manage change and collaborate across functional siloes; and the successful reinvention of operational processes, customer relationships and business models. The award categories include individual and organizational awards as described below. Smart Industry congratulates all those who were nominated, as well as the winners named today.

DX Visionary Award

Transformational Leadership Award category, three senior executives were recognized for the vision, innovation, perseverance and growth mindset to inspire andlead their organizations to embark on a journey of DX. The honorees in the category of DX Visionary are:

Technologies Added

A digitally focused contract manufacturer based in Emmen, The Netherlands

DX Becomes Backbone of Organization

Joris Bisschop, CEO, Technologies Added

Technology Added makes new mobility, clean tech, smart indoor/smart outdoor products. TA believes in mass customization and wants to provide it to SME at reasonable cost. The problem: they had an MVP set-up that was home programmed. They create a flexible digital backbone that controls the process from order intake to delivery of n=1 production. Our DX is the core of their business. The fact that we can provide a n=1 production for multiple customers at this production level is unique. As a result of this work, TA can provide services to an unlimited number of customers and we can provide them unlimited variants of their products.

Cooper Tire & Rubber Company

A global manufacturer of car and light truck tires based in Findlay, Ohio, USA

Offering Consistency and Commonality Through A Single MES

J. Scott Cole, Vice President, Advanced Manufacturing, Cooper Tire & Rubber Company

Cooper Tire has begun the process of digitizing manufacturing operations. The process foundation is the implementation of a state-of-the-art global MES, an effort that began in 2020. The vision beyond MES includes potential use cases in predictive analytics, machine learning, and digital twin/simulation.

NBC Bearings, National Engineering Industries

A leading manufacturer of bearings for automotive, industrial and railway sectors, based in Jaipur, India

Implementing Industry 4.0 Initiatives at Scale

Rohit Saboo, President & CEO, NBC Bearings, National Engineering Industries

Pre-DX, data was captured on paper and logged into a non-real time system with a 24-hr delay. NBC Bearings developed a digital strategy road map, connected the digital initiatives to the organization’s strategic alignment, implemented a comprehensive change management program to address people and process, and ran inclusive programs involving and engaging all segments of people in the organization. Achieving a smart factory means the organization can now acquire real time, accurate data for plant-floor decision making, improved predictive maintenance and increased overall equipment efficiency (OEE).

Smart Industry Transformational Leadership Awards - DX Champion

DX Champion Award

Three executives with direct responsibility for implementing DX initiatives were recognized for their demonstrated ability to create teams and lead them to desired goals. The honorees in the category of DX Champion are:

Southwire Company

A global leader in wire and wire-making machinery headquartered in Carrollton, Georgia, USA

Southwire Makes the Right Connections

Jeff Dewberry, Director, Connected Enterprise, Southwire Company

Lack of connected systems at Southwire limited the visibility to production issues, which limited the ability to improve. Nothing was connected including production lines, business systems or quality devices. There was no OT network. They are working to get the right information to the right person at the right time to make the right decisions and to make the equipment operator's job less frustrating. A proof of concept was followed by a pilot in two plants and now Southwire is providing correct information at the point of need to drive the decision making to the lowest level.

Fresenius Medical Care (FMC)

A global provider of products, services and systems for renal disease, based in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Germany

Digital Twins Drive Efficiency for Manufacturer of Dialysis Therapy Systems

Oliver Paul, Senior Director Therapy System Lifecycle Management and Larry Dubé, Vice President, PLM Strategy, Fresenius Medical Care

FMC develops and manufactures dialysis therapy systems. To continue its innovation, develop global products, drive efficiency and speed time to market in product development, manufacturing and product management, FMC needed to move away from its paper-based systems, processes, methods and tools.

Hindalco Industries Limited

A global leader and vertically integrated producer of aluminum and copper, based in Mumbai, India

Small but Mighty Team Drives Digital Transformation

Jagdish Ramaswamy, Chief Digital Officer, Hindalco Industries Limited

The team created smarter plants by providing real time visibility into operations and KPIs, data access without barriers, and deployed AI/ML to improve asset reliability and product quality. They created a more efficient supply chain by optimizing logistics cost through machine learning and price forecasting, and models to optimize procurement cost. They developed a digital savvy workforce to delight employees by deploying cutting edge technologies.

Smart Industry Transformational Leadership Awards - DX Trailblazer

DX Trailblazer Award

Three end-user organizations were recognized for the successful execution of DX in one or multiple areas of their business and at scale, ranging from operations to product/service offering to customer service. The end-user organizations honored in the category of DX Trailblazer are:

Fonterra Cooperative Group

A multinational dairy cooperative that collects and processes more than 20 billion liters of milk each season into a range of ingredients and finished consumer goods, based in Auckland, New Zealand

Making Informed Decisions in Real Time

Fonterra’s DX took three years to complete and now empowers data-driven insights across 10+ Fonterra sites. The OEE calculations delivered through Microsoft’s Power BI allow Fonterra employees at many levels to see data along with insights on any device, from anywhere, so they can make informed decisions.

Hindalco Industries Limited

A global leader and vertically integrated producer of aluminum and copper, based in Mumbai, India

Digital Ambassadors Create and Sustain Digital Transformation

Hindalco lacked real time visibility into operations and relied on experience-based rather than data-based decision making. They wanted better asset availability and utilization, improved quality and reduced costs. Since creating the road map for digital transformation three years ago, significant progress has been made in the digital maturity of the organization – including creating Digital Ambassadors and a single sharing platform for best practices, learning and training.

Polpharma SA

Manufacturer of active pharmaceutical ingredients and finished dosage forms at its drug production plant in Starogard Gdański, Poland

Digital Twins Help Maintain Quality Standards for APIs

Before this digital transformation, remote support at this API plant in Poland consisted of phone calls between technicians. With a digital platform and augmented reality, based on Vuforita Chalk and ThingWorx, Polpharma now creates digital twins to monitor the parameters of assets. Polpharma has a user friendly, smart platform for training of new employees, effective maintenance and installation supervision.

Smart Industry Transformational Leadership Awards - IIoT Pioneer

IIoT Pioneer Award

Three machine builders, or industrial original-equipment manufacturers (OEMs), were recognized for the successful leverage of digital technologies to increase value for their customers and generate new revenue streams. The industrial OEMs honored in the category of IIoT Pioneer are:

IMA Group

Global designer and manufacturer of automated machines for the processing and packaging of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food, tea and coffee based in Bologna, Italy

IMA Group Uses Digitalization to Quickly Adapt to COVID-19 Pandemic

IMA Group, a global OEM leading in the design and manufacture of machines for processing and packaging pharmaceuticals, adapted quickly to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic by leveraging digitalization. Based in Northern Italy, an epicenter of the original pandemic crisis, and with 46 production plants around the world, IMA recognized the urgency of vaccine development and adapted quickly to help its customers to accelerate the development of medicines and vaccines, from concept to live production, using digital capabilities.

Sani-Matic

A leading designer and manufacturer of automated sanitary process cleaning equipment used across the biopharmaceutical and food & beverage processing industries, based in Sun Prairie, Wis., USA

Cloud-Based System Meets Demanding Standards for CIP and COP

Sani-Matic needed an IoT cloud-based software for generating cleaning cycle reports and analyzing operational data. They wanted to bring the best technology to automated cleaning system reporting, increase service revenue and open up a new SaaS recurring revenue stream, and lead the industry in technology development to promote this product and differentiate its overall systems.

Shandong Mining Machinery Group

A producer of conveyors, hydraulic supports, belt conveyors and hydraulic props and other equipment used in mining operations, based in Weifang, Shandong, China

System Unification Reduces Maintenance Costs and Failure Rates

Shandong Mining is using predictive maintenance technology to significantly reduce scheduled maintenance time and costs and reduce mechanical failure rates and times.

IT/OT Teamwork Award

Three organizations were recognized for their ability to foster productive collaboration across traditional functional siloes resulting in the successful DX projects. The organizations honored in the category of IT/OT Teamwork are:

Cooper Tire & Rubber Company

A global manufacturer of car and light truck tires based in Findlay, Ohio, USA

Fresnius Medical Care

A global provider of products, services and systems for renal disease, based in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Germany

NBC Bearings, National Engineering Industries

A leading manufacturer of bearings for automotive, industrial and railway sectors, based in Jaipur, India