Manufacturing at Microsoft Ignite 2022: Do more with less

The Microsoft Ignite event is one of our opportunities to showcase new and updated technology innovations. We all know that now, more than ever, it’s critical to apply technology to create safer factories, and more resilient and sustainable supply chains. However, one thing stays the same for manufacturershow do we do more with less? Navigating which technologies are right for your unique manufacturing needs can be daunting, so here are my top takeaways from Microsoft Ignite 2022 for manufacturing executives, and links to the most relevant blogs and sessions:

• Start with Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing as the guide to the right solutions for your needs.  
• Learn how manufacturers are increasing resilience and sustainability in their factories and supply chains. 
• Addressing manufacturing skills gaps by embracing new solutions helps to harmonize people and automation. 
• Explore the new opportunities presented by industrial metaverses.

Start with Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing as the guide to the right solutions for your needs 

Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing brings the best outcome-driven solutions and capabilities from Microsoft and our partners to accelerate time-to-value for our customers in an end-to-end, holistic, and scalable way. 

As we’ve previously announced, our Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing investments are in five key business areas delivered as composable and extensible solutions with an end-to-end focus on the sustainability and security needs of manufacturers:

1. Transforming the workforce.
2. Building more agile factories.
3. Creating more resilient supply-chains.
4. Engaging customers in new ways.
5. Unlocking innovation to deliver new services.

Watch Improve factory visibility and decision making with Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing to get a sneak preview of what we’re working on to enhance operational visibility, the foundation of manufacturers’ smart factory strategiesgiving them the performance insights they need across multiple factories, lines, and production equipment while also serving as the starting point for sharing best practicesand enhancing factory and multi-factory collaboration between frontline workers, engineering experts, and the partner ecosystem that keep their factories running.

And speaking of partners here’s what AVEVA, PTC, and Rockwell Automation had to share about Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing:

“AVEVA and Microsoft connect people, assets, and data to the customer’s business to empower their teams, enable enterprise-wide visibility and enhance collaboration across their value chain. AVEVA and Microsoft have a decades-long collaboration. Our joint solutions have enabled customers to convert opportunity into business value, accelerating industrial transformation while embedding sustainability across the value chain. Now we are extending that value to data-led innovation delivered in the cloud.”Kerry Grimes, Head of Global Partners | AVEVA.

“With PTC’s ThingWorx digital performance management (DPM) solution, manufacturers gain greater visibility into process bottlenecks that hinder production. Leveraging DPM with the Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing, they can extend this bottleneck analysis to other systems to track and assign tasks, facilitate communication between management and operators on shift, and create more opportunities for digital collaboration.”Catherine Kniker, EVP, Chief Strategy & Sustainability Officer | PTC.

“Working together, Rockwell Automation and Microsoft are in a unique position to deliver value to manufacturers and our entire ecosystem. By leveraging the Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing, our customers can accelerate the speed at which they collaborate, develop, and consume applications to achieve their business objectivesconnecting assets, providing data in context, and enabling visibility to otherwise hidden information.”Andrew Ellis, VP Global Portfolio Engineering | Rockwell Automation.

You can hear from more partners in the blog Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing: Partnering to manufacture a more resilient and sustainable future.

Learn how manufacturers are increasing resilience and sustainability in their factories

If you’re skeptical about doing more with less, check out Judson Althoff’s keynote where he talks with multiple manufacturers, including Jorg Burzer, Member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG, responsible for Production and Supply Chain Management. Read more about the partnership between Mercedes-Benz and Microsoft collaborate to boost efficiency, resilience and sustainability in car production.

We were proud to showcase and announce the General Availability of the Microsoft Sustainability Manager at Hannover Messe earlier this year, and I encourage you to learn more about how we are Driving innovation for ESG progress with Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability as we help manufacturers rein in the more elusive Scope 3 emissions data. With this update, we’re enabling organizations to ingest waste data, track waste partners, track disposal methods and materials, and make required calculations based on out-of-the-box or tailored models.

Addressing manufacturing skills gaps by embracing new solutions help to harmonize people and automation

Doing more with less often means cutting back on travel and engaging with customers in new ways. For manufacturers, this means activating digital selling and modernizing the service experience to enable always-on service. Read the following to get the latest on how we are Bringing more intelligence to sales teams with Dynamics 365 and Introducing new AI, automation, and collaboration capabilities for Dynamics 365 across sales and service.

In a special Into Focus session at Microsoft Ignite 2022, we showcased new AI, automation, and collaborative solutions that help manufacturers be more efficient, engage better across teams and departments, and deliver more breakthrough customer experiences.  

Manufacturers continuously remind us that Microsoft Teams has become a mission-critical platform for them and have helped shape many of our frontline workers’ features such as Teams Shifts and Walkie Talkie push-to-talk (PTT). You can see a sneak peek of how Teams is being integrated with manufacturing data services in the Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing breakout session. Also check out Whats New in Microsoft Teams, where we share news on Honeywell, which now joins our ecosystem of devices integrated with Walkie Talkie push-to-talk on Teams and there’s a great story on how 3M’s Post-it Brand and Microsoft join up to create the Post-it App for Microsoft Teams.

Just like Microsoft Teams, manufacturers are seeing the value of low code across all of their business processes, including their factories. Learn how Johnson Controls has leveraged Teams and Microsoft Power Platform to build and deploy a set of applications they call Power Smart Factory to help streamline frontline operations and improve factory operations. Read how we are improving low-code governance with Managed Environments for Power Platform.

Explore the new opportunities presented by industrial metaverses

While we announced how Microsoft and Meta are partnering to deliver immersive experiences for the future of work and play in the consumer metaverse, I recommend you watch Judson’s keynote to learn more about how Microsoft is approaching commercial and industrial metaverses and customer examples of how some aspects are already here todaysuch as Kawasaki Heavy Industries, one of the world’s leading robotics companies, is exploring with Microsoft how the industrial metaverse could allow engineers, service technicians, and frontline workers to work together in the factory of the future utilizing the Internet of Things (IoT), digital twins, mixed reality, and collaborative spaces like Mesh for Microsoft Teams. 

Microsoft Intelligent Manufacturing Award (MIMA) winner Bosch’s Digital Twin is another example of an industrial metaverse that “takes human-machine collaboration to the next level“.  

Use Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing to do more with less

As rising costs, supply chain issues, and other challenges continue to mountmanufacturers need more intelligent cloud solutions and technology to do more with less. To future-proof your manufacturing organization, it’s imperative to find new ways to make data-driven decisions through industrial IoT, cloud, AI, and mixed reality solutions. 

Learn more

Follow Microsoft Manufacturingon Twitter and visit our Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing websiteto learn how Microsoft and our partners are helping manufacturers create a more resilient and sustainable future.

Sign up toreceive updatesabout Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing. 

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Source: Microsoft Industry Blog