Migration Strategies towards the Digital Manufacturing Automation

A Migration Methodology for Factories Digital Transformation

“…In particular, this paper refers to migration as a progressive transformation, moving an existing production system towards digitalization. Migration strategies are essential to support the implementation of digital technologies in the manufacturing sector aiming at achieving a flexible manufacturing environment based on rapid and seamless processes as a response to new operational and business demands [5].…”

“…The blueprint migration strategy [6] is represented by steps 2-3-4-5 of the methodology. The term "blueprint" refers to an early plan that explains how something might be achieved.…”

“…The main goal of this assessment is to obtain a clear picture of what should be changed in the company's business, by investigating the implications and preconditions of this change at technical, operational and human dimensions. To assess the various issues related to the three dimensions, a digital maturity model has been exploited [2], [5] .…”

“…For these reasons, new automation architectures are required to enhance flexibility and scalability, enabling the integration of modern IT technologies and, consequently, increasing efficiency and production performance [5]. Nevertheless, reality today shows the dominance of production systems based on a traditional approach, characterized by a hierarchical and centralized control structure.…”

“…At the same time, they need to be confident that the new systems will improve production time, quality and cost. Manufacturers will never accept production systems that compromise the achievement of the above mentioned performances [6]. Indeed, the intent of this paper is to present a new business case evaluation methodology that gives support to strategy implementation for a smooth migration, considering a holistic vision from the technical, operational, human and business perspective.…”