When you think about using technology to reduce or eliminate friction points within your company, there are many use cases within your back office, engineering, and R&D teams.
Applied correctly, these kinds of systems allow your engineering and R&D teams to focus on what they do best: product development -- rather than worry about tracking down missing information scattered throughout your company and beyond.
These same engineering and R&D teams may be huge beneficiaries of automation, systems integrations, application programming interfaces (APIs), or migrating from a legacy platform to a cloud-based platform. However, these teams really just need to efficiently work on their product development. The more seamless your technology partner can make this process, the more productive your teams will be - and the faster their productive cycles are, the less waste there is - and so, the more profitable that portion of your company becomes.
Even when automation isn’t possible, there are still many ways to eliminate or at least mitigate problem resolution. If your manufacturing team, for example, frequently brainstorms solutions using whiteboards and markers, what happens when markers run out? If your team collaborates with other locations using video conferencing in conference rooms, what happens when the TV or AV technology malfunctions? What happens when a meeting is running way longer than expected and the coffee maker in the conference room is out of coffee (and your best talent is starting to doze off as a result)?
All of these situations, which can create intense organizational friction, can be improved by installing IoT (Internet of Things) buttons in optimal locations that relay and log a specific trouble request or support request to a specific team within your company.
By systematizing these routine requests, employees will feel more empowered to rapidly initiate action around problem resolution - regardless of whether your meeting supplies are running low, or a tank of inert gas on a factory floor needs refilling, or a bin is running low on key raw materials needed for final assembly.
How has your manufacturing company applied technology to reduce or eliminate friction points? Share your comments below.
