These days, most organizations have checked the box on the idea of “digital transformation.” But as with most technology-driven evolution, the work is never truly done. And for many businesses, the next step is to leverage the data that is now accessible thanks to said transformation. It’s a concept experts call data maturity; but for smaller and mid-sized companies with little-to-no IT resources, the path can feel daunting. Large organizations, on the other hand, often struggle with the sheer volume of data, or the fact that it is buried in a complex, siloed tech stack.
How automation can help
As with the automation of physical jobs, automated data analysis and business intelligence can be a game-changer for productivity and overall success. And because most of today’s automation solutions not only deliver valuable data, but can even help employees decipher and act on it, data maturity is well within reach.
Solution 1: Integrate machine learning
You make great efforts to learn from business outcomes (good or bad)—shouldn’t your automation do the same? New technologies do—with deep machine learning and autonomic (or self-healing) capabilities.
While autonomic behavior has been seen more commonly in IT applications, Gartner predicted more prevalence of “physical systems such as robots, drones, manufacturing machines and smart spaces.”
The applications here are almost limitless: from quality control systems that can classify, segment and detect abnormalities on the production line (to a degree that once seemed impossible) to more reliable optical character recognition (OCR) to overcome barcode reader issues in logistics and distribution.
Solution 2: Consider the cloud
Cloud-software-enabled automation solutions are making big data easier to manage, because users can capture and share data more quickly across their organization for better reporting.
More importantly (and different from edge computing solutions), the cloud allows physical automation systems to feed data to external, AI-enabled software platforms—many of which can enable more in-depth business intelligence and reporting; sophisticated predictive analytics; and easier remote control. This also allows organizations to eliminate physical silos—sending data from various systems and locations to one central program for analysis and reporting, for instance.
Solution 3: Robots get smart
What if your robots analyzed and acted on data for you? They’re headed there, with the aforementioned autonomic capabilities. In fact, IoT-enabled robotics can “communicate” and assess system activity in real-time to prioritize and assign/reassign tasks among individual components. In the same vein, automated systems can deliver their own predictive maintenance alerts or make predictions about supply restocking needs based on past production history.
See these solutions—and more—at Automate 2024
If you’re in the market for a new way to increase your organization’s data maturity, Automate is the best place to explore the latest and greatest automation breakthroughs for businesses big and small. Register for free and join us May 6–9, 2024, in Chicago, Illinois.
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