How will Industry 4.0 play into the future of chemical companies

With the development of chemical industry, companies are trying to imagine how digital economy will create opportunities and risks. To do this, chemical companies must rely on their digital plans to make decisions quickly and adapt to changing customer expectations.

Industry 4. Now we focus on digital technology to collect and analyze data across machines and business systems by implementing faster and more effective processes. It combines manufacturing, logistics, sales and services to achieve value in a short time. Now is the time for chemical companies to start to improve their industry 4.0 strategy. A study by the world economic forum found that 87 percent of chemical executives said companies that did not accept digital technology would lose their competitive advantage and could face extinction.

Sap has been involved in industry 4.0 and its strategy discussions since it became an academic discussion for the first time in 2011. During this period, sap is an integral part of the definition of industry 4.0 as a high-tech strategy for the future in 2020.

Earlier this year, SAP announced its first industry 4. Now it provides application and advanced technology for 4.0 and intelligent enterprises of living industry.

Two industry trends show how industry 4.0 will play a role in the future of chemicals:

Improving Sustainability: scarcity of resources, changes in government regulation and consumer expectations require innovative business models and platforms to support more sustainable practices. As governments and other organizations begin to implement sustainable measures, such as the prohibition of disposable plastics and emission regulations, chemical companies will need to adapt to these new regulations and lead the way to a sustainable future.

New customer experience: with continuous commercialization and falling profit margin, chemical companies must focus on collaborative innovation, sales of commercial value and results, not just products. The ultimate goal is to provide a new customer and consumer experience by putting data at the heart of all the work the company does.

For example, alpis Plastics Co., Ltd. is the world's leading thermoplastic operating company. The company hopes to introduce predictive quality analysis into its composite business. However, a shaft that stores information locally means that predictive quality analysis at all manufacturing locations will be a challenge.

With SAP cloud platform and IOT technology, albis now uses advanced analytics to review historical production and process data. Based on this, the solution analyzes patterns related to previous quality issues and uses them to identify key quality risk areas in the process. These results are then communicated to the quality management team using reports and dashboards.

Since the implementation of this solution, albis has seen visibility and analysis improvements in line performance. The company now has an architectural blueprint that can be used for big data analysis cases, and because of the cloud based software as a service, it requires only a small amount of system maintenance.

For chemical companies, SAP strategy is around industry 4. It can now be divided into four different areas.

Intelligent products

The intelligent products in the chemical industry are not necessarily focused on making the existing products more intelligent, but rather the business model of providing new products or providing new value-added services. This is achieved by leveraging data and new intelligence technologies throughout the product lifecycle. In this way, enterprises can simplify R & D processes or rely on digital services to provide results based business models to customers.

Smart factory

Smart plants - or, from a chemical point of view, smart plants - focus on the efficient use of materials and energy while companies are producing high-quality products. They are also forced to respond quickly to changing needs and unforeseen events. Covid-19 is an example; many chemical companies have quickly adjusted their factories to produce more products, such as hand sanitizer or personal protective equipment.

Smart assets

The company is looking for ways to avoid equipment downtime and improve asset performance. They do this by moving from passive asset management plans to forecasting and active data driven plans.

Authorized person

The industrial 4.0 strategy has taken a step forward in the human component, not only makes the people working in the factory smarter, but also provides resources and training to enable employees to work more effectively and safely. Companies are always looking for ways to reduce the risk of human error and improve employee performance. Providing real-time data driven decision support helps ensure security, improve performance, and further drive innovation.