DigitalTrack 4.0: the roadmap to digitization for the medium-sized process industry
- Joint offer from Bilfinger Digital Next and 3con Management Consultants: step-by-step, sustainable digitization from a single source
- Focus on rapidly added value: identifying and efficiently leveraging potential
Digitization offers many potentials for improvement in the area of operations. Prescient analyses and the optimization of production processes can save costs and increase plant efficiency. However, medium-sized companies in particular often still find it difficult to find the right path for their digital transformation. This is because their facilities and needs are individual, while the range of digital technologies on offer is confusing and resources are limited. Initial pilot projects often fall short of expectations. After all, successful and sustainable digitization requires not only the right, individually appropriate technologies, but also a change in the company towards a digital working world and culture. In order to offer the process industry a solution that combines the transformation process in the company with the right digitization technology, Bilfinger Digital Next and 3con Management Consultants have developed their joint DigitalTrack 4.0 approach.
"Our customers in the process industry want to use digitization for themselves, but often lack a controlled transformation process that actively drives change. Together with 3con, we now offer a holistic approach," says Franz Braun, Managing Director of Bilfinger Digital Next GmbH and Chief Digital Officer at Bilfinger.
The DigitalTrack 4.0 solution is based on 4 principles that ensure successful and sustainable digitization in the medium-sized process industry:
- Digitization is not an end in itself: digitization must be driven by business and not by technology. This is how it quickly achieves distinct added value.
- Digitization needs leadership: digitization must be exemplified by top management and requires constant communication within the organization.
- Digitization is 50% technology and 50% organizational development: in addition to the appropriate technology, competencies and work processes must be adapted. Digitization must be transferred into the corporate culture.
- Digitization only succeeds step by step: the overall transformation must be broken down into manageable work packages, each of which solves a specific challenge and generates tangible added value.#
To meet these principles, Bilfinger and 3con combine their many years of experience in orchestrating transformation processes, in organizational development and in change management, and in implementing digital solutions based on machine learning and data model-supported analysis for the process industry.
"Digitization is a transformation process to be coordinated, which can be run through for different operational areas, each at its own speed. Our joint approach is to develop a business case based on an analysis and to implement a concrete digitization solution for the customer in a short time. DigitalTrack 4.0 is the high-speed digitization for the process industry," says Dr. Ziad Mahayni, Partner at 3con Management Consulting.
Picture caption: the digital transformation of operations can be compared to the subway network of a large city. With the support of Bilfinger and 3con, the milestones are identified, which should be prioritized in each individual case - to bring the greatest added value.
This cooperation between 3con Management Consultants and Bilfinger Digital Next is based on the intention to expand the digitization offerings of both companies with the competencies of the other, thus to be able to act as a holistic partner during digital transformation. Companies in the process industry need both the competence to develop digital solutions and a change management that takes a holistic and business-oriented view of the opportunities and which helps to develop the digital culture.
About Bilfinger Digital Next GmbH
Bilfinger Digital Next GmbH – a corporate start-up of the leading international industrial services provider Bilfinger – develops innovative, data-driven business models through a unique combination of state-of-the-art technologies in the field of IIoT and many years of market knowledge, thereby supporting customers in the process industry in their digital transformation. We develop and implement highly relevant solutions which increase plant productivity, improve occupational safety, reduce operating costs and qualify employees.
Started as a digital & innovation lab in 2017, we launched our first digital products (BCAP®) and pilot projects in 2018. Since then we have been growing continuously together with our customers from the process industry. At our headquarters in Heidelberg, we currently employ 40 people with a strong focus on domain knowledge and data science. With these combined competencies, we use BCAP® (Bilfinger Connected Asset Performance) to create insights into isolated data, define actions and implement company-relevant improvements. With Industrial Tube, expertise can be shared across companies via video – quickly, easily and across facilities and plants. In the app, individual work processes are recorded with simple step-by-step instructions. PIDGraph uses artificial intelligence to convert your analog P&I flowchart into an intelligent format, providing the basis for a digital twin of your plant. For further information, please visit https://digitalnext.bilfinger.com.