Manufacturing Archives - Microsoft Industry Blogs - Canada http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-ca/industry/blog/author/ Tue, 16 Oct 2018 13:55:41 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Cloud Adoption – Start Small, think BIG http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-ca/industry/blog/financial-services/2018/06/19/cloud-adoption-start-small-think-big/ Tue, 19 Jun 2018 10:33:47 +0000 Addressing the foundational and operational components without having a workload (I.e. one or more applications) that will exist on the platform is of little value.

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Addressing the foundational and operational components without having a workload (I.e. one or more applications or application components such as databases or web parts) that will exist on the platform is of little value.  Identification, prioritization, and migration of a workload is essential to the business case for change and ensures organizations prioritize the foundations and operations workstreams.

Some organizations are very large and their IT department have to manage hundreds, or thousands of applications running on several thousand virtual machines (VMs). Many are overwhelmed by the thought of workload migration.  For some, it’s difficult to know where to start.  They need to determine:

  • the complexity and business value of migrating workloads
  • which workloads to move first
  • how to prioritize the workloads
  • which cloud computing model to use (IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS)
  • the regulatory and compliance implications of moving workloads to the cloud
  • the impact on data security and the current enterprise processes
  • which roles, training, additional skills are required to operate the workloads in a Cloud environment
  • the approach to adoption and change management – ensuring that investments in the Cloud will provide value to the organization
  • how moving to the cloud allows the organization to meet its goals

An organization doesn’t just wake up one day and decide to migrate workloads to the cloud. There must be a compelling reason to use cloud: what business value will be derived by using public cloud services? This vision and goal then drives what applications should be in the cloud and which should not. This vision and goal should also drive the prioritization of migrating workloads to the cloud.

Aligning benefits to your Cloud Strategy

The benefits of cloud are changing. No longer is cost savings the biggest driver in moving to the cloud.  Greater scalability, faster access to infrastructure, and faster time to market are leading drivers today.

When moving to the cloud, it is important to align benefits to your cloud strategy. Public cloud services offer benefits that enable CIOs to make significant advances in all of the following areas:

  • Service Performance
  • Innovation
  • Elasticity
  • Security

From the benefits listed above, there are some questions organizations should  be asking themselves:

  • What do these potential benefits mean to your department?
  • How will you capitalize on these to deliver benefits to the business?
    • What workloads will you move to the cloud and in which order?
    • Which applications will you move and in what order?
    • IaaS, PaaS, SaaS –  in which order?
  • How ready is your department to move to the cloud?
    • Do you need to train staff in new skills?
    • Do you need to address the fear of job loss?
    • Do you need to adjust ITIL operational support processes?

Having a clearly defined cloud strategy drives the identification, planning and prioritization of migrating workloads to the cloud. Without one, your organization will struggle with your cloud adoption goals. Microsoft Services can help you with defining your cloud strategy and workload identification, planning and migration. Our next blog will describe Microsoft’s workload migration approach. Please reach out to myself on LinkedIn if your government ministry or department is looking to develop a cloud strategy and/or requires help in identifying workloads to migrate.

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Thinking Beyond the Horse and Buggy http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-ca/industry/blog/manufacturing/2018/03/22/thinking-beyond-the-horse-and-buggy/ Thu, 22 Mar 2018 17:01:57 +0000 Early 20th century buggy companies competed for customers who sought luxurious and efficient horse buggies and looked for innovative ways to produce the best in...

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Early 20th century buggy companies competed for customers who sought luxurious and efficient horse buggies and looked for innovative ways to produce the best in the market. The invention of the car quickly put a wrench in their plans, disrupting and transforming the industry.

Software-driven vehicle transformation

Trying to exponentially transform the way you manage and interact with your vehicles by adding more mechanical gears and cool (but disjointed) gadgets to them is like trying to improve the horse-buggy by adding more horses to pull the buggy.

Instead empower components to integrate, leveraging cloud to enable quick safety decision making, a more productive ride and self-correcting predictive analysis – improving efficiency and reducing costs.

Enter Microsoft’s Connected Vehicle Solution

Digital transformation is reshaping the automotive industry by enabling autonomous driving technologies, advanced driving assistance systems and intelligent infotainment experiences.

These breakthrough technologies are providing automakers and fleet managers with new opportunities to build deeper relationships with customers, streamline their maintenance services, and open new revenue streams.

Take advantage of new opportunities and transform your business

When deciding on the first step, consider adding connectivity. Using real-time vehicle connectivity, automakers and fleet managers can enable remote interactions and use vehicle data to predict service needs, provide consumers personalized offers, and monetize new data streams, positively impacting the bottom line by:

  • Increasing vehicle and parts sales. Increase your vehicle’s desirability by enabling customers to remotely interact with their vehicle, track its location, review trip history, and receive push notifications about upcoming service, accidents, and parental controls. Improve parts and accessory sales by providing targeted offers and loyalty programs to drive higher conversion rates of offers, utilization of dealer service departments, and interactions with dealerships.
  • Proactively addressing maintenance. Lengthen the life of vehicles and increase customer satisfaction by running remote diagnostics and applying predictive analytics to vehicle data to proactively calculate vehicle service needs based on mileage, driving conditions, and location. Use these predictions to deliver personalized offers to customers and keep fleet assets running at maximum efficiency.
  • Enabling new revenue streams. Uncover new business opportunities by monetizing real-time vehicle data for third-party consumption or creating new value-add services for customers. For example, facilitate smart insurance by offering insurance companies preauthorized access to client data to enable pay-as-you-go and pay-as-you-drive insurance offerings. Alternatively, deliver new in-app services such as mobile payments to ease transactions for dealer services or add-on roadside assistance services.
  • Deploying quickly. Utilizing a compliant cloud architecture, the Vehicle Management solution can be deployed quickly virtually anywhere in the world. Each deployment can be customized to your brand and localized for its market. Built on a continuously evolving platform that includes firmware over-the-air (FOTA) updates, your solution will always have the latest capabilities and security protections.

Learn more about how customers are using Microsoft Connected Vehicles Solutions, and contact me on LinkedIn to find out how we can work together to help transform your connected vehicles operations.

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Live From New York: The National Retail Federation’s Big Show!!! http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-ca/industry/blog/retail/2018/01/10/live-from-new-york-the-national-retail-federations-big-show/ Wed, 10 Jan 2018 10:16:59 +0000 Each year I come to New York for the NRF - Retail's Big Show! It's a huge conference where more than 30,000 people assemble to see what's new in the technologies...

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Each year I come to New York for the NRF – Retail’s Big Show! It’s a huge conference where more than 30,000 people assemble to see what’s new in the technologies that are impacting on our industry.

There’s also a great amount of fun and excitement in the surround events that companies plan to host their customers. They do this as a way to entertain and engage their clients, but they also serve to keep clients busy and less available to spend time with their competition.

That’s all well and good if you’re thinking from a self-serving perspective. To me, that seems less about helping your customer and more about boxing out your competition.

I take a different approach to the surround events I create. Working with the Retail Council of Canada, we develop a tour of stores in New York. It’s great to walk through the big conference center and see all the new, bright and shiny technologies, but that’s not the same as seeing how innovative Retailers are doing business. Over the last several years, our tour has become a reason that many Canadian retailers join us during their participation in NRF.

You’d think that a company like Microsoft would focus only on technology, (primarily our own technology), but that’s not what we do. Our goal is to create value for the Retail industry in general, and the members of the Retail Council of Canada specifically.

A month before NRF I travel to New York to scout out stores that have some cool technologies, but I also look for an equal number of locations that have unique design elements or an engaging customer experience.

This year the trip will include the Adidas store in Soho. It focuses on the community and fashion forward designs including some from Pharrell Williams.

When we start out on the tour we offer some advice on how our guests can get the most from our event. The first idea is to have a look at the concepts being presented in the stores we visit, and consider how they might have an application in their own locations. Of even more importance, is the opportunity we create for our guests to network with one another, talk about what they they’ve seen, and learn from one another.

It takes a lot of planning to manage a tour of 50 people from more than 20 companies but there’s a lot of value that comes from this. It’s certainly fun to explore stores in New York, but it’s even better when you watch these people start coming together as they compare notes and ideas. This is the type of thing that helps to grow an industry and make us all more successful.

Of course, I also encourage you to visit the Microsoft booth where we have some very interesting stories to share. Here’s just a taste –

  • How an autonomous retail robot helped customers quickly find products in a giant store
  • How an AI algorithm – originally developed for fundamental research in particle physics – helped retailers reduce out-of-stock rates by 80%
  • Using image recognition to identify what your customers are wearing and recommend new clothes based on their personal style

I look forward to seeing you at NRF.

For more information on how Microsoft is helping retailers transform their business, download our whitepaper.

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Enabling Transformation for the Factory of the Future http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-ca/industry/blog/manufacturing/2017/12/27/enabling-transformation-for-the-factory-of-the-future/ Wed, 27 Dec 2017 14:54:56 +0000 Preparing for a digital future is anything but simple. It entails the development of digital capabilities where a company’s processes, people and culture are aligned towards growth and achieving the organizational goals.

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Preparing for a digital future is anything but simple. It entails the development of digital capabilities where a company’s processes, people and culture are aligned towards growth and achieving the organizational goals. For manufacturing businesses, there are significant challenges because the digital transformation impacts every aspect of operations and the supply chain – from equipment and product design to production processes, logistics and service.

Connect products and services

External forces like cyber risk, sustainability and complex regulations force companies to transform how they manufacture products, as well as create unique business models that cater to today’s connected customer.

Businesses previously designed, built, produced and shipped products that customers bought, concluding the cycle. It wasn’t common practice to center the entire manufacturing process around the customer and support an ongoing relationship. Now, organizations are building in continuous feedback loops – sensors in products and customer feedback from various channels. The cloud and big data allow for a greater opportunity to improve customer connections and really differentiate your organization by doing things like listening to customer sentiment, analyzing usage and determining quality.

Digitize your Production

With the convergence of physical and digital, many manufacturing companies are embracing digital transformation. Many manufacturers believe that achieving end-to-end real-time monitoring is key to improving business process, but despite investments made, only 7% of manufacturers have achieved real-time monitoring across the entire manufacturing process. The results for those who have successfully implemented smart, connected factories are extremely powerful with average realized productivity gains of 17-20%.

Digital transformation is about applying technologies to radically change traditional processes, products and services into data-driven, connected solutions that can be monetized through efficiency gains and new business models. This digital-first approach allows acceleration time to market and provides new customer value. Finding an approach that fits your business is critical, as there is no one-size-fits all.

Consider these three foundational guidelines to set your organization on a course that make sense:

  • Build a vision for your digital transformation journey
  • Develop a holistic and realistic strategy
  • Identify a partner with industry experience required to deliver the change you need

Develop a strategy to match your objectives

Three key considerations that are easy to overlook, but important to evaluate include finding the relationship between your strategy and technology, prioritizing agility to contribute to longer-term success and the unique requirements for your industry and vertical.

Avoid going it alone

Transformation efforts grounded in industry and vertical expertise are more likely to result in better solutions. The partner you choose should have knowledge of your objectives and scope, a deep understanding of the technology being used as well as strong experience helping others with similar initiatives. They should be able to help you think through the entire digital transformation journey as well as assisting with full execution of that vision.

Find out how Microsoft services can help you drive transformative change while minimizing you risk by reach out to us on our social channels:  Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook 

Learn more: A Strategic Approach to Digital Transformation in Manufacturing Industries

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Can GDPR provide an Opportunity for transformative change? http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-ca/industry/blog/financial-services/2017/12/15/can-gdpr-provide-an-opportunity-for-transformative-change/ Fri, 15 Dec 2017 12:19:56 +0000 Will your business be able to effectively respond to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulatory compliance mandate by May 2018?

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Will your business be able to effectively respond to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulatory compliance mandate by May 2018? GDPR sets a higher bar for privacy rights for security and compliance, imposing new rules on organizations offering goods and services to people in the EU, or that collect and analyze data tied to EU residents, no matter where they are located.

With approximately 160 GDPR requirements ranging from how you collect, store and use personal information, to mandating a 72-hour notification for personal data breaches, it’s clear that your digital transformation journey is a key initiative to help accelerate the path the compliance.

We have categorized the impact of the regulation in 4 main areas:

GDPR digs deeper in requirements related on how to collect, store and use personal information. Not just by identifying and securing the data but also by instituting transparent mechanisms to detect and report usage, breaches and how you train your organization.

GDPR compliance will require your organization to rethink processes, providing opportunity for transformative change

Partnering with clients in their regulatory compliance has helped us identify three best practices that can help you leverage the opportunity GDPR provides for transformation:

  • Combine GDPR compliance requirements with Transformational Programs – If you’re embarking in a program to transform client experiences, create a more productive enterprise, optimize your operations or transform your products/services, an opportunity exists to align your GDPR program and embed most of its requirements. If you’re leveraging the Cloud or in the process of migrating, you have a relationship with the Office of the Chief Information Security Officer and/or any other security and regulatory area in your organization. Don’t fear discarding synergies due to concerns of prolonging your cloud efforts. Show them that you are proactively addressing regulatory compliance and that you welcome them at the table of both initiatives.
  • Effectively CommunicateAll transformational initiatives require clear communication. Transparency and openness is at the core of GDPR. Leverage nurtured relationships and change management mechanisms. Team up with the security and regulatory areas to spread the message of the risk of not being compliant to every line of business. Listen and assess the risk profiles to allow you to focus on the right requirements.
  • Programs of change need good Governance – Instituting the right Governance framework will allow you to collaborate and effectively execute any change required due to updates in the regulatory compliance or new data insights that you learn from your organizational regulatory health state.

Complying with GDPR to help customers succeed

Microsoft is already preparing all our products and services to comply with GDPR. We leverage the same synergies mentioned above and can add value to your GDPR journey in the following areas:

Simplify Your Privacy

Our cloud services offer the most streamlined way to meet your GDPR compliance obligations, with a simplified and complete approach to the governance of data and policies. We provide threat intelligence and tools to help you leverage that intelligence. If we are currently partnering in your Transformational journey initiatives, making us part of your GDPR Journey can amplify that relationship.

Uncover Risk & Take Action

Our products and services are fully GDPR compliant, and many of them can help you today in your compliance journey. Our data solutions can help secure and clean up your data environment, reducing your exposure to risk. We are leveraging our continuous delivery approach by releasing new tools that will help you.

You are not alone – utilize experts along the way

As the GDPR deadline draws closer, we are here to partner with you to identify any synergies and/or accelerators that you can leverage to achieve effective regulatory compliance. Just like any Digital Transformation program, monitor the cost of your GDPR program in detail and continuously challenge it against the quality and effectiveness that you are receiving. Find out how ready you are for the GDPR.

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3 Things to look out for at the Canadian Manufacturing Technology Show http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-ca/industry/blog/manufacturing/2017/09/19/3-things-to-look-out-for-at-the-canadian-manufacturing-technology-show/ Tue, 19 Sep 2017 03:07:29 +0000 It’s just a few days until the Canadian Manufacturing Technology Show kicks off at the International Center in Mississauga, and we have been working away with our partner Hitachi Solutions on a cutting edge technology showcase for the exhibition floor.

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It’s just a few days until the Canadian Manufacturing Technology Show kicks off at the International Center in Mississauga, and we have been working away with our partner Hitachi Solutions on a cutting edge technology showcase for the exhibition floor. Whether you are interested in learning the latest on how to modernize your field service capabilities, implement an IIoT strategy, or ensuring you have an agile and future proof enterprise resource planning system, we will have a team of experts on hand to answer your questions. Of course, we will also be bringing a great set of technology demos and hardware to show off these capabilities in action, including Hitachi’s Predictive Service Hub and a few other surprises from the Microsoft portfolio.

So – if you are attending, ensure you stop by the Microsoft & Hitachi booth on the exhibition hall, but here are 3 other key things to look out for at the show:

1. Industry 4.0 hitting mainstream

There is a lot of buzz around Industry 4.0 – a somewhat nebulous term that summarizes the digitalization of multiple aspects of the manufacturing industry over the next few years. There is still a lot of hype, but a lot that is real as well. Ensure you check out Kevin Goering’s session on Digital Manufacturing, Myths vs. Reality to get the McKinsey & Co. perspective on this topic.

2. The Rise of Additive Manufacturing in Canada

Additive manufacturing, or as it is known more commonly in consumer centered applications as 3D-Printing, is rapidly changing many aspects of the manufacturing business, from accelerating prototyping, to allowing for increased customization and increasing the ability to repair complex parts. Tons of great sessions and technology vendors will be present showing the cutting edge in this specific area of technology.

3. Getting started with IIOT projects is easier than you think

A multitude of technology advancements are converging to make implementing effective Industrial Internet of Things projects easier than you may think. Increased sensor capability and availability, rapidly advancing, cost effective analytics and machine learning capabilities and an increasing body of technical implementation expertise on advanced projects is accelerating adoption of this technology. Ensure you check out our booth to get an overview of how Hitachi’s Azure powered Predictive Service Hub can help you kick start this journey in your organization.

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DirectWest reimagines core business processes for a digital age http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-ca/industry/blog/retail/2017/06/08/directwest-reimagines-core-business-processes-for-a-digital-age/ Thu, 08 Jun 2017 11:55:36 +0000 DirectWest, a phone directory publisher in Saskatchewan, Canada, is in the midst of a digital transformation. The company worked with Microsoft Services to...

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DirectWest, a phone directory publisher in Saskatchewan, Canada, is in the midst of a digital transformation. The company worked with Microsoft Services to completely reimagine core business processes for a digital age. By using expert guidance and cloud services from Microsoft, DirectWest has reinvigorated its development team, sped its development cycle, and modernized customer-facing systems to deliver greater customer intelligence and more innovative services.

Transform a paper-based phone directory company

For nearly 30 years, DirectWest has been a phone directory publisher in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, helping to knit the province’s 1.1 million residents together across a vast geographical expanse. A subsidiary of SaskTel, Saskatchewan’s leading information and communications technology provider, DirectWest is best known as the provider of Mysask411, the local online directory assistance service.

While many Saskatchewan residents still rely on paper phone books, most business customers are going digital. DirectWest followed suit, digitizing its business and residential directories and creating new services for business customers, such as building websites and managing their online and social media presence.

In 2016, DirectWest was ready to transform and modernize its core sales, customer management, and customer service systems that were the bedrock of those new digital offerings. The existing applications were old, rigid, expensive to maintain and support, and crimped the company’s ability to quickly roll out new digital services and make use of customer data.

Envision a digital future

DirectWest wanted to begin moving its operations to the cloud and decided to build its next-gen IT systems on Microsoft technologies. “Our new solutions needed to interoperate with our older applications, and Microsoft had a vast ecosystem of on-premises and cloud products that all work together,” says Andrew Clarke, Vice President of Information Technology at DirectWest.

To help it plan and successfully embark on its ambitious digital transformation journey, DirectWest turned to Microsoft Services for strategic planning and implementation assistance. DirectWest specifically worked with an onsite Microsoft Services Digital Advisor, who worked as part of the DirectWest team to envision the company’s digital future and strategize a path for getting there, prioritize projects, design solution architectures, and provide other strategic assistance.

“Our Digital Advisor really invigorated our staff and opened our eyes,” Clarke says. “DirectWest is a mature organization, and cultural change can often be more difficult than technology change. Microsoft Services was good at matching the business benefits of the technology we were implementing to our company’s objectives and showing us what was possible. They helped us evolve and expand our phone directory and change the perception of who we are. We’re now taking that message and excitement out to our customers.”

Create a unified sales and service platform

DirectWest used Microsoft Dynamics 365 to completely revamp its sales and service operations. It outfitted its 30-person field sales team with Microsoft Surface Pro devices and developed sales presentations that took full advantage of Surface Pro touch and digital pen interactivity.

Salespeople connect to Dynamics 365 in seconds (versus minutes for the VPN connection required by the previous system) and enter customer notes using either their Surface Pro devices or smartphones. The office-based sales teams use Microsoft Surface Hub collaboration devices to pull up Dynamics 365 and discuss customer account status between offices across vast Saskatchewan sales territories.

“An important aspect of our digital transformation is creating an environment where sales and sales fulfillment can spend more time advising customers and less time on administration,” says Keith Jeannot, President and CEO at DirectWest. “Our salespeople use the solution that we developed with Microsoft to reduce preparation time and streamline order submissions. This increases time spent helping customers and reduces our back-end costs.”

Adds Clarke, “Because accessing and using Dynamics 365 is so easy to do, our salespeople use it from the field, which means we’re getting much better information from our customers. This in turn allows us to serve them better. Dynamics 365 is now the one place everyone goes to see all our interactions with our customers.”

With help from Microsoft Services, DirectWest has similarly transformed its customer service workflows. It can track and streamline the process of deploying new customer services, resolve issues faster, and see sales opportunities more easily. The company uses Microsoft Power BI to create dashboards of key performance indicators, with Microsoft Azure Data Lake and Azure Streaming Analytics providing cloud data storage and analytics services.

“From our digital directories, we have a lot of data about who consumers are contacting,” Clarke says. “We use Azure to analyze this data, in combination with our own sales data, then export it to Dynamics 365, which flags specific prospects as opportunities. Dynamics tracks how those leads pan out and feeds that data back into the analytics system so it gets smarter, and we can make product recommendations to our customers that will increase their business.”

Microsoft Office 365 provides all employees with mobile, cloud-based access to a rapidly expanding suite of productivity, communications, and collaboration services. And with Microsoft Azure Active Directory, DirectWest gives employees single sign-on to new cloud services and existing apps.

“We feared that Dynamics 365 would need to be a large, multiyear IT project, but Microsoft Services introduced us to a sprint development model that helped us deliver functionality very quickly,” Clarke says. “That, together with a commitment to reduce customization in Dynamics, dramatically sped up deployment.” DirectWest got its first iteration of Dynamics 365 deployed in just five months.

Continuously innovate

DirectWest has a long road map of exciting ideas it wants to pursue. “Microsoft Services brought a lot of experience and accelerated our staff’s understanding of Dynamics 365 and the broader Microsoft cloud stack,” Clarke says. “It was very valuable to have the company that built the products help us implement them.”

DirectWest is working to give customers more self-service options and insights into the web and social channels it manages for them. These services include 24-hour access to DirectWest services, greater service personalization, deeper service usage reporting, and other capabilities.

“The iterative approach that Microsoft Services used on our project really led to its success,” Clarke says. “We were able to launch Dynamics 365 on time, implement it successfully, and move much faster going forward. Our digital transformation success has been facilitated by choosing the right products and partners.”

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A Whole New Reality for Service and Maintenance http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-ca/industry/blog/uncategorized/2017/03/27/a-whole-new-reality-for-service-and-maintenance/ Mon, 27 Mar 2017 19:50:06 +0000 One of your machines is down and your client calls for service and spends the better part of an hour in remote assistance, spinning their wheels. A field service...

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One of your machines is down and your client calls for service and spends the better part of an hour in remote assistance, spinning their wheels. A field service technician is dispatched to inspect the problem, only to realize it has been misdiagnosed and the replacement parts he brought are useless. Time is spent trying to locate the actual issue, one he’s never encountered before. Searching through manuals for similar scenarios adds multiple minutes to the clock and the client becomes increasingly impatient. He calls head office to speak to an in-house expert to help walk him through it, but the complex problem is difficult to describe accurately. If the expert were with him, things would be very different.

Complex machinery manufacturers are losing money as a result of field service engineers failing to resolve issues on the first service call. Remote diagnoses can be inaccurate and difficult. Slow fixes and long machine downtimes also cause customer dissatisfaction. Augmented reality (AR) using Microsoft HoloLens can change this outcome, and quickly satisfy the customer.

A New Way to See Your World

Microsoft HoloLens is the first self-contained, holographic wireless computer device, enabling you to engage with your digital content and interact with holograms in the world around you. It is made up of specialized components that together enable holographic computing. The optical system works in lock-step with advanced sensors. The HPU makes light work of processing large amounts of data per second. All of these components enable you to move freely and interact with holograms.

HoloLens can empower field service engineers by placing the entire repository of technical knowledge at their fingertips. If you want to make a call or have a video chat, the digital window will pop-up right in your environment and you can complete your job – without using a PC or cellphone – directly interacting with the virtual projections so you can complete your task.  The following features make this possible:

  • Sensor Fusion: Advanced sensors capture information about your environment, so it can see, map, and understand the physical places, spaces, and things around you
  • Advanced Optics: See-through holographic high-definition lenses use an advanced optical projection system, generating multi-dimensional full-colour images with very low latency so you can see holograms in your world
  • Custom Holographic Processing Unit: The HPU is custom silicon that processes a large amount of data per second from the sensors, allowing the Microsoft HoloLens to understand gestures and where you look, and maps the world around you, all in real time
  • Built-in speakers/Spatial Sound: precise audio experience without headphones, HoloLens synthesizes sound so you can hear holograms from anywhere in the room

HoloLens seeks to immerse users in a digitally enhanced environment, where they can interact with virtual-reality elements added into real-world environments.

HoloLens enabled thyssenkrupp to transform the global elevator industry

Using HoloLens, 24,000 thyssenkrupp elevator service technicians can now visualize and identify problems ahead of a job, and have remote access to technical and expert information when onsite. The work they are doing with HoloLens centers on the use of Skype, which is available to all users of HoloLens without any additional development work required. Skype allows the technicians to be hands free on the jobsite, even when making remote calls to subject-matter experts and sharing holographic instructions between users. This enables more flexibility and also complies with safety regulations. In initial trials, HoloLens has reduced the average length of thyssenkrupp’s service calls by 4X!

Improve your Operations Planning

According to ABI Research, the AR market in industrial industries, particularly manufacturing, will grow by more than 400% over the previous year. As technologies like HoloLens become more mainstream, AR will be more prevalent and likely be part of our daily work experience.

Empowering customers to accelerate business value imagined and realized from their digital experiences is what Microsoft Services does best. That’s why we’re focused on helping customers unlock the possibilities of this new reality, using digital experiences to first imagine what’s next, and then quickly turn those insights into business value. We can help you build a world class predictive maintenance application and assist you to reduce field maintenance costs utilizing HoloLens.

#DisruptMining Event during PDAC 2017

Microsoft HoloLens was featured at an Innovation Expo at #DisruptMining, a marquee event during the annual Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (“PDAC”) convention in Toronto on March 5, 2017 at The Carlu.  The event brought together mining executives, investors, tech fans and the best entrepreneurs to discuss, evaluate and challenge traditional notions of mining and exploration and showcase disruptive and exponential technologies with the potential to revolutionize the future of mineral exploration.  Look for a #DisruptMining blog entry soon!

Reach out to us on our social channels to continue the conversation: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

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Readiness Needed to Repel Cyber Threats in Manufacturing http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-ca/industry/blog/uncategorized/2017/03/27/readiness-needed-to-repel-cyber-threats-in-manufacturing/ Mon, 27 Mar 2017 19:44:21 +0000 What steps are you taking to make sure your manufacturing organization isn’t the victim of cyber hacking and an information systems security breach?

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What steps are you taking to make sure your manufacturing organization isn’t the victim of cyber hacking and an information systems security breach?

Cyberattacks on manufacturers are increasing with attackers stealing valuable intellectual property (IP) and trade secrets and positioning themselves for financial gain.

The threats are real and on the rise

According to a study from Deloitte and the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation (MAPI)  on “Cyber Risk in Advance Manufacturing,” nearly half of surveyed manufacturing executives lack confidence that their assets are protected from external threats.

Results of the study indicate nearly 40 percent of surveyed manufacturing companies were affected by cyber incidents in the past 12 months, and 38 percent of those impacted indicated cyber breaches resulted in damages of more than $1 million.

Accelerated pace of change in technology

The study found that the manufacturing industry is likely to see increased application of technology due to emerging trends, such as:

  • Large scale investments in IP and exponential technologies
  • Exploration of industry 4.0 digital manufacturing opportunities and increased interconnectivity of the industrial ecosystem
  • Rapid adoption of sensor technology, smart products and Internet of Things (IoT) strategies and analytics to drive increased customer service and business efficiency

The existing technology footprint coupled with the accelerating pace of change in business and manufacturing technology will have a huge impact on the breadth and complexity of the cyber risks manufacturers will need to address moving forward.

Responding to the threats

Large Canadian resource corporations are facing new digital threats including cyber-security breaches, online ransom requests and the leaking of confidential records.

In a recent example, Microsoft Services, on advisement from Microsoft Cyber Security experts, presented to one of Canada’s largest resources companies that they were vulnerable to security threats. While the company didn’t react immediately, a few days after the warning they contacted Microsoft Services regarding a cyber ransom request.

Microsoft responded quickly to the security breach and saved this resource manufacturer from further damages, by providing them with greater digital security. The company has now put the following into place to minimize risk:

  • An appointed security architect
  • Setting up multi factor authentication
  • Hardening the findings from the breach with a Microsoft Active Directory Dedicated Support Engineer
  • Modernizing legacy servers

The project team continues to work closely with the client to deliver solutions and build out long term road maps detailing the steps needed for them to transform and better react to future incidents. Microsoft Services was uniquely positioned to bring all the various experts together to quickly respond to an urgent threat challenging the business operations of a valued customer. For them, it is imperative to mitigate corporate cybersecurity risks to maintain confidence with investors.

Microsoft’s Investment in Security

More than a billion dollars in security research and development is spent every year, and Microsoft recently announced its Cyber Defense Operations Centre; a state-of-the-art facility that brings together security response experts from across the company to help protect, detect and respond to threats in real time.

In addition to this, Microsoft’s Windows 10 OS has Credential Guard, Device Guard and improved security features such as BitLocker, which means security events related to client device management requiring IT remediation are reduced or avoided altogether.

Prevention Methods for Manufacturers

If you haven’t already done so, Microsoft Services can work with you to ensure the following key activities are implemented to help ward off Cyber Crime in your organization:

  • Vulnerability Management Plan – helping identify holes where often hackers find their way in
  • Prioritization of Security Awareness – educating employees on suspicious emails/activity
  • Incident Response Plan – ensuring maximum effectiveness should a breach occur
  • Securing systems and servers – ensuring hardened security features implemented

Manufacturers can never be certain that they are 100 percent protected from a cyber-attack. However, by enforcing effective measures, they will be able to build resilience from the potential threats.

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What organizations of all sizes need to know to drive digital transformation http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-ca/industry/blog/financial-services/2017/01/17/what-organizations-of-all-sizes-need-to-know-to-drive-digital-transformation/ Tue, 17 Jan 2017 11:20:21 +0000 Implementing a digital strategy is fundamental to driving productivity and growth within your organization. The question is not ‘if’ but ‘how’ will your company take advantage of the new era of business transformation.

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Today, the digital connections are endless. From your mobile phone to your smart watch and connected car, we are creating more digital connections than ever before. In fact, Intel estimates that we’ll have 200 billion Internet-connected things by 2030.

We can no longer deny it – this incredible explosion of digital is real and the ability to digitize and automate is transforming traditional business models quicker than ever before, while also disrupting industries. In fact, in a recent survey of global CEOs, 86% said they consider digital to be their number one priority and believe that technology will transform their business more than any other global trend.

It’s important for businesses – from the smallest startups to the largest enterprises – to understand how digital is impacting your industry and how your digital transformation priorities need to shift.

Start by asking yourself a few questions:

1 – How is my business being digitally transformed?

2 – How is my core business model being changed by digital technology?

3 – How vulnerable is my industry to a digital disruption? What’s my biggest threat?

To truly transform, irrespective of the industry you are in, you have to start thinking and operating like a digital company. It’s about being truly interconnected – you can no longer solve problems in silos by looking at solutions that only address one challenge.

At Microsoft, we think about transformation across four key areas.

Engaging Customers

The power of delivering technology to the right people in the right way is driving business growth across many industries in Canada and around the world. As businesses digitally transform, the way they engage with customers is rapidly changing and the innovation they are seeing is nothing short of extraordinary.

Travel over to Italy’s largest grocery cooperative, and you might get the feeling you’ve stepped into a time machine. Coop, known as “the grocery store of the future” is using technology to create a human, informative and engaging experience for their customers. By giving shoppers this experience, they are creating new expectations and setting the bar somewhere we never imagined possible.

Empowering Employees

Employee empowerment is about more than just productivity – it’s about understanding how we use our time and maximizing the output of an entire workforce. The trouble that organizations often face is effectively measuring productivity without disrupting it.

Look at the example set by Kinetisense. Their vision has always been to open lines of communication between multiple health-related disciplines across the globe. By leveraging Azure and the Microsoft Cloud they’re able to do just that; provide tools for clinicians to be able to access data from clinics around the world. They can build on each other’s treatments, and ultimately help the patient.

Optimizing Operations

If you’ve ever handed over your credit card to a sales person, shopped online or via your smartphone, your digital payment has likely been managed by Moneris, one of the largest payment processors in North America. The flexibility of their offering and the speed and security of their payment processes are key to success for both the company and its customers.

To stay on top of business growth and demand for round-the-clock services, Moneris embarked on a digital transformation journey. The results? The company can now handle 600 financial transactions per second—approximately 50 million each day—with no data loss and continuously high levels of performance, security, and availability.

It’s this digital transformation that helps them maintain their competitive edge by optimizing their operations and helping them focus on what’s most important – building new features for their own products. Learn more about their story here.

Transforming Products

As we innovate and grow Microsoft’s products and services, we are inspired by the digital transformation happening among our partners and customers. The Missing Children’s Society of Canada (MCSC) is finding missing children and reuniting families across the country. The Microsoft Cloud, and specifically the Azure platform, allowed MCCS to transform their technology platform and connect the country, going from alerting just a million people when a child went missing to alerting over five million people within a few seconds. This technology is driving real impact in communities across Canada.

In short, implementing a digital strategy is fundamental to driving productivity and growth within your organization. The question is not ‘if’ but ‘how’ will your company take advantage of the new era of business transformation.

Find out how Microsoft and other industry leaders are providing innovative solutions to address your number one priority – digital transformation. Share your transformation story with us! We would love to hear from you.

What do you think? Will you disrupt or be disrupted in the coming year? Start your digital transformation journey today. 

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