Assessing Your Company’s Digital Maturity: A Proven Framework

In the last few years, digital transformation has reached many sectors, including industry.  Today, any company that wants to survive and evolve must be adapted to the economic and production demands of a changing and increasingly competitive environment.

To achieve this goal, digital transformation offers a new scenario of automation and optimisation of resources, which, when properly applied, will provide the company with capabilities that will make a difference in its performance.

But the first step is to know where the business stands and where it needs to move forward in this digital transformation. In this article, we tell you how it is possible to identify the level of digitalisation of a company and what steps need to be taken after this analysis.

 

What is the digital maturity of an industrial company?

We understand digital maturity as the state in which a company is, from the point of view of hardware, software and even cultural factor. In other words, what methods, tools and resources a company has developed to implement digital transformation in its business.

In the case of the industrial sector, in order to calculate the level of digital maturity, a very broad vision must be taken: from an initial stage with very traditional processes, to the ideal point in which technologies are taken advantage of and new and innovative business models are explored.

Furthermore, by measuring a company’s level of digital maturity, it will bring to light strengths, weaknesses and areas to be strengthened. Based on this analysis, a roadmap can be drawn up that allows new improvement techniques to be devised in the short, medium and long term.

 

Characteristics of a digitally developed company

In order to know the degree of digital maturity, it is essential to know what traits characterise a company that is already part of a digitalisation process and is at an advanced level.

If you are wondering whether your business is at an advanced stage of digitisation, these are the traits that make up a digitised company:

• The power of data. They make use of tools based on big data, IIoT or machine learning to achieve operational efficiency and improve production processes.
• Interconnected structure. A digitised company forms teams oriented towards collaboration between departments and disciplines. This structure, where all areas are connected to each other, makes it possible to improve and work more efficiently.
• To operate efficiently, a company immersed in a digital transformation process builds a strategy with a totally pragmatic approach.
• Consistency, continuity and coherence at every stage. Working with an integrated operations platform makes it possible to operate seamlessly from any area of the company. Digitalisation allows processes to be grouped, redefined and integrated into a single centralised platform.

 

Levels of digital maturity

Depending on the processes you have and apply in your business, it will fall into one of 4 different levels of digital maturity.

1. Digitisation in process

Characterised by a digitalisation of the industrial plant, companies at this point begin to use tools such as MES, SCADA or ERP. These changes involve remote maintenance management in real time, together with centralised information and an improvement in the flexibility and personalisation of services. It is at this stage of the process that Industry 4.0 technologies such as Big Data, robotics, Machine Learning and cybersecurity are really included.

1. Digital disconnection

A company at this point has an obsolete industrial plant, characterised by slow production of goods and services, with high response times.

Lacking effective interdepartmental communication, which increases the risk of unplanned interruptions, aggravated by a lack of preventive and predictive maintenance.

2. Planning the digital challenge

In this phase of digitalisation, new opportunities arise and system improvements are planned for efficient production. It is at this point that the process of digitisation of the industry starts to be planned and the centralisation of the systems begins.

3. Digitisation in process

Characterised by a digitalisation of the industrial plant, companies at this point begin to use tools such as MES, SCADA or ERP. These changes involve remote maintenance management in real time, together with centralised information and an improvement in the flexibility and personalisation of services. It is at this stage of the process that Industry 4.0 technologies such as Big Data, robotics, Machine Learning and cybersecurity are really included.

4. Full digital integration

This is the highest level in a digitalisation process. In it, a complete integration of Industry 4.0 technologies is carried out and predictions and error prevention are applied, thanks to monitoring tools.

With total digitisation, leadership in digital transformation is achieved in the sector, achieving added value compared to the competition. A 100% digitised company carries out advanced analytics, beyond the surface, using algorithms and artificial intelligence.

 

 

Knowing your level of digital transformation will allow you to

Once you have been able to analyse and detect the level of digital maturity of your industrial plant, you will be able to:

• Have more control over the current state of your company, its digital and production processes. This assessment will give you the opportunity to have indicators that can be used for future audits.
• Have a database to work with and find areas for improvement at a digital level, in order to later invest and prioritise them.
• Put the focus on the next stage to reach, outlining the next medium and long term objectives.

 

Reach your company’s digital maturity with Nexus Integra

Nexus Integra is the integrated operations platform that will allow you to drive the digital transformation of your organisation. You will be able to connect all your assets and information systems, processing them using Big Data technology and obtaining a single operations framework for monitoring, management and analysis.