DECEMBER, 202219 curiosity and long-standing experience is one of the keys to engaging people across all areas of manufacturing.How did we in Active Ingredient Manufacturing (AIM) embark on this journey towards creating meaningful insights from implementing "Digital across AIM"? As a first step, a Plant Readiness Assessment was run in all ten sites across the Active Ingredient Manufacturing network at Bayer Crop Science. This facilitated self-assessment was performed in eight categories selecting subject matter experts addressing questions on a five-level maturity scale. This step excited the teams early on ­ to discuss what we have already achieved over the past couple of years and where we have identified opportunities for further growth. Next, these improvement ideas were substantiated in follow up discussions, defining scope, required resources, benefits, etc. These ideas were then pitched in a prioritization workshop and rated in the dimensions of benefit and effort by the site leadership team and selected SMEs. Based on these ratings, a first roadmap was drafted for the top-ranking projects ­ this allowed for some quick wins as a catalyst to onboard broader teams. Additional projects were ranked to provide enabling infrastructure and technology. In a final step, all projects were consolidated into an overarching project, clustering similar projects and realizing project tracking and portfolio management, allowing for governance and cross fertilization between the sites. A network of Digital Site Leads was also established, to facilitate exchange between sites. Fostering collaboration and a stringent focus on a global budget managed by this group empowered the team to jointly decide which test-and-learn projects to support. This helped drive empowerment and engagement, and generated learnings across sites.There have been some challenges along the way. One is working in a brownfield environment with solid automation of the plants, but also with equipment of varying ages and a grown and scattered landscape of digital tools. Another consideration is that these opportunities significantly change the way we work, and a broadened skillset, e.g., data analytics skills, is needed to be successful. In summary, the bottom-up strategy in combination with fostering collaboration between sites, all based on DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION: ENGAGING OUR PEOPLETHIS PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH DIGITALIZATION ACROSS THE WORKFORCE COMBINED WITH CURIOSITY AND LONG-STANDING EXPERIENCE IS ONE OF THE KEYS TO ENGAGING PEOPLE ACROSS ALL AREAS OF MANUFACTURINGa facilitated self-assessment, accelerated digital transformation in Active Ingredient Manufacturing significantly. Management offered platforms and the framework; content was added by the shopfloor driving the "Digital@AIM" initiative bottom-up rather than top-down. This created a healthy pull from all levels of the organization, generated a new level of curiosity amongst the teams feeding both energy and content to the initiative. Today, our skilled, curious, and engaged workforce leverage data & IoT opportunities for safer, more sustainable, and competitive production. It will change the way we look at and address topics in the future ­ an important ingredient for our transformation and cultural development.
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