Tag: Hannover Messe

Across the manufacturing industry, pressure continues to rise as organizations and their workforces balance unpredictable supply chains, complex regulatory and compliance requirements, advanced security threats, and heightened competition. These forces are driving the need for rapid technological advancement—especially among the nearly 430 million frontline manufacturing workers at the center of this digital transformation.¹

However, over one-third of all frontline workers in manufacturing report that they do not have the right technological tools to do their job effectively—representing a significant opportunity for companies looking to develop their frontline talent and future-proof operations.²

At Microsoft, we are working to empower all manufacturing workers, from the factory floor to the customer’s door, with the solutions they need for sustainable growth and increased productivity. We know that 63 percent of frontline workers in manufacturing are excited about the job opportunities tech creates and we are working hard to create purpose-built solutions to support their success.¹

Today, I am excited to announce several new cross-cloud product features and capabilities designed to optimize, connect, and upskill the manufacturing workforce—helping frontline workers perform at their best today and harness the opportunities of tomorrow.

Optimize workflow integration to empower your frontline

This week at Hannover Messe 2022, we are announcing the general availability of Updates in Microsoft Teams, enhancements to Approvals in Teams, and customizations to optimize key manufacturing workflows through Microsoft Power Apps.

Easily create, review, and submit employee updates with Updates in Microsoft Teams  

Many of today’s manufacturing workers still rely on outdated tools and manual updates to stay in sync and get work done. Updates in Microsoft Teams is an out-of-box app that saves people time and energy by helping them create, submit, and review all their check-ins, reports, and updates right in the flow of work. Whether those are recurring processes that happen on a regular basis, like inspections and maintenance updates, or real-time updates that might be needed at any time, like incident reporting, Updates makes it easy for you to manage these all in one place.

Integrate Approvals across line of business applications and Microsoft 365

Extend and integrate Approvals in Microsoft Teams into your factory operations apps through Graph APIs in Microsoft 365 and Power Apps Control Framework controls in Power Apps. These include new integrations with Microsoft 365 to create approval requests for an entire document or a section of a document directly in Microsoft Word. Additionally, you will be able to create and manage approval requests directly within Microsoft Lists. All of these enhancements will be in preview this summer, and stay tuned for new features in our pipeline, like group approvals, sequential approvers, and more.

“These kinds of workflow capabilities bring operational processes into the flow of work and make Teams and Microsoft 365 a critical platform for manufacturers,” shares Richard Gregory, Global Value Realization Lead, Avanade. “They enable factory teams to be streamlined and efficient—tying organizational productivity and communication tools seamlessly into the day-to-day work of frontline manufacturing workers.”

Bring frontline collaboration into your custom apps with Collaboration controls

With Collaboration controls, you can leverage the best of Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams collaboration capabilities (chat, meetings, Tasks, files, and Approvals) in Power Apps to enable contextual collaboration around business processes. In preview later in 2022, this integration allows for the building of custom collaborative experiences for manufacturing with easy access for your frontline workers directly in Teams.

Smart building solutions provider Johnson Controls leveraged Microsoft Teams and Power Platform to build and deploy a set of applications called Power Smart Factory to help streamline frontline operations and improve factory operations. Learn how their solution helped optimize workloads, reduce machine downtime, improve product and service quality, and save money in this customer story video.

Learn more about how Microsoft Teams and Power Platform can work together to simplify critical manufacturing workflows.

Streamline the manufacturing frontline with Microsoft Teams Shifts connector for Blue Yonder Workforce Management

The Microsoft Teams Shifts connector for Blue Yonder Workforce Management (WFM), now generally available, extends the value of Blue Yonder WFM for manufacturers that rely on it for precise labor scheduling, accurate time and attendance tracking, reduced associate turnover, and simplified compliance with labor laws and corporate policies. The Shifts connector allows for two-way replication of schedule and shift-related data between Teams and Blue Yonder WFM and empowers frontline workers to view and manage schedules while on the go. With greater optimization of workers, managers are free to spend less time on administrative tasks, leaving more time for the high-value work of coaching and mentoring employees and working directly with customers. Learn more about this year’s Nucleus Research Value Matrix Leader.

Connect your workforce with communication and engagement solutions

The generational shift in worker age, the unlocking and digitization of manufacturing-floor data, and most recently, the global COVID-19 pandemic are all driving forces in the acceleration of digital transformation in the manufacturing industry. Together, these factors have led to a manufacturing workforce that is less experienced and more spread out physically. In addition, 62 percent of all frontline workers say leadership does not prioritize building culture²—creating a greater need to access institutional knowledge and build workplace community.

Manufacturers need tools that help their frontline teams collaborate and stay connected across geographies and functions—while helping them tap into key resources and insights across teams. With purpose-built frontline capabilities in Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Viva Connections, we are creating solutions that better connect manufacturing workers with each other and their organizations to enable improved real-time decision-making.

Access Walkie Talkie in Microsoft Teams on more devices

The Walkie Talkie app helps streamline the way frontline workers securely communicate with each other by offering a familiar push-to-talk experience built directly within Teams. Frontline teams can instantly communicate with each other, anywhere in the world, without having to worry about frequency static or cross talk. I’m excited to announce the addition of Crosscall ruggedized handheld devices to our growing list of Walkie Talkie integration partnerships with Samsung Electronics, Zebra Technologies, Sonim Technologies, and Kyocera. Manufacturing frontline workers will now be able to use Teams Walkie Talkie on select Crosscall Core-X, Core-T, and Action-X series devices. Read the Tech Community blog, Walkie Talkie in Teams is now supported on Crosscall rugged devices, to learn more.

Support multiple home sites and multilingual Dashboards in Microsoft Viva Connections

Customers will soon have the option to enable multiple home sites within a single Microsoft Viva Connections tenant allowing a tailored experience for different roles and teams within an organization. This new feature provides a better Dashboard layout and Resources tab for frontline workers who may be in different locations, roles, or subsidiaries within a single organization—providing a home base that is more relevant and personalized.

Viva Connections Dashboards now support multiple language views in public preview. Customers with a multilingual frontline workforce can optimize their Dashboards for an employee’s preferred language—supporting inclusivity and engagement while advancing workforce transformation.

Manufacturers like Blum are leveraging tools like Microsoft Viva Connections and Microsoft Teams to promote employee culture while optimizing for the factory of the future. Learn how Blum created a customized employee experience app for their frontline workforce with Viva Connections in this customer story video.

To learn more about how Microsoft Viva Connections is enhancing the employee experience, check out the latest Tech Community blog post, What’s new and next in Viva Connections.  

Upskilling for a future-proof frontline

With 55 percent of frontline workers saying they’ve had to adapt to using digital tools on the fly, with no formal training or practice, workforce transformation has never been more important.² Within our Microsoft Viva custom-built solutions to facilitate upskilling, reskilling, and ongoing learning, we are announcing several new capabilities to help companies equip their frontline with the tools and training to stay up to date, improve safety and compliance, and prepare for the future.

In-line playback for Viva Learning is now generally available in Teams and allows manufacturing workers to watch content from LinkedIn Learning directly in the mobile app. Previously only available on desktop, frontline workers can now access learning and development courses in a way that better suits their needs through on-the-go learning on their mobile devices. And, in preview in June 2022, customers can discover, view, and share Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) content alongside formal learning courses through Viva Learning. Generally available in June 2022, manufacturing workers will be able to search and filter for company content—like safety trainings and onboarding resources—by description, duration, skill tags, and more.

See how Microsoft Viva Learning supports frontline manufacturing workers’ ongoing career growth and development.

To learn more about the latest updates and announcements from the Microsoft Viva Learning team, read the Tech Community blog.

Join us at Hannover Messe and learn more

Come see our latest innovations for the frontline workforce and meet members of the Microsoft team this week at Hannover Messe, the world’s leading trade show for industrial technology. Visit our showcases at the Microsoft exhibition in the Digital Ecosystems area in hall 4.

Prepare your frontline workers to accelerate into the future of manufacturing

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¹The Rise of the Deskless Workforce, Emergence. 2018.

²Technology Can Help Unlock a New Future for Frontline Workers, Work Trend Index: Special Report, Microsoft. January 12, 2022.

Manufacturing at its core is about innovation, building capacity and talent, and growth. It is essential to all facets of our lives, and the past two years have pushed the industry into the spotlight as it has faced exceptional obstacles. But out of that disruption, we have seen great opportunity and witnessed manufacturers across industries rise to the challenge. Factories have pivoted to produce and deliver COVID-19 test kits and medical supplies while automotive manufacturers have tried adapting to chip shortages, and consumer product companies shifted to home delivery and curbside pick-up business models. Practically overnight, manufacturing has been propelled into a new era.

But we know there is still work to be done. That is one of the profound reasons why we are excited to join global leaders and our colleagues this week in Hannover, Germany at the world’s biggest trade show for industrial technology, Hannover Messe. We are very proud to have our valued partners like ABB, Ansys, Accenture, Avanade, AVEVA, Blue Yonder, Cognite, C3.ai, ICONICS, o9 Solutions, PwC, PROS, PTC, Rockwell Automation, Sight Machine, Tata Consultancy Services, and Tulip Interfaces at our booth to demonstrate how they are co-innovating with us to transform the industry.

As we embark on this week of innovation, we are seeing four key trends emerge including organizations empowering a more diverse workforce, including – if not – emphasizing their frontline workers, the implementation of new technologies to build agile factory environments, the reimagination of what a resilient supply chain looks like and the acceleration of sustainability.

Here we explore how these key trends are advancing the industry:

1. Empowering a diverse frontline manufacturing workforce

There are more than 427 million frontline manufacturing workers who are at the center of industrial digital transformation. The pandemic shed new light on the need to equip frontline workers with tools and solutions that accelerate sustainable growth and productivity. And we know our frontline workers are hungry for more tools. According to Microsoft’s Work Trend Index, 63% of manufacturing frontline employees are excited about, and ready for, the job opportunities technology creates.

Today, Microsoft is introducing several product updates across Microsoft 365 designed to connect and engage frontline manufacturing workers:

• A new Updates app in Microsoft Teams lets frontline workers and managers streamline processes.
• Customers can now access Walkie Talkie in Microsoft Teams on a wide range of rugged hand-held Crosscall devices.
• The Microsoft Teams Shifts connector for Blue Yonder Workforce Management (WFM) is now generally available.
• New updates in Microsoft Viva allow customers to facilitate upskilling and learning to empower frontline workers to prepare for the future and improve safety and compliance. Learn more about these and other updates in the Microsoft 365 blog.

2. Fueling the next generation of factories with the industrial metaverse

The pandemic was a wake-up call for most, and manufacturers pivoted to accelerate their digital investments, from smart factories and IoT platforms to cloud computing and advanced analytics. In fact, 72% of manufacturers surveyed are already executing their smart factory strategies and 85%  are embracing artificial intelligence (AI) as a key capability for the future, according to a manufacturing-focused IoT Signals Report, to be published in June.

To help accelerate these strategies, the Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing serves as the foundation for the “industrial metaverse,” which converges physical and digital worlds to bring the factory of the future to life through advanced technologies including IoT, AI, digital twins, mixed reality and autonomous systems. Manufacturers can use the industrial metaverse to transform the way machinery, equipment, buildings, factories and supply chains are created, operated and optimized.

Today our customers are already using industrial metaverse components to transform their operations. For example, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, one of the world’s leading robotics companies, will demonstrate how a virtual space and an actual machine can work together by utilizing digital twins. Additionally, we will show how Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management can leverage robotics technology to improve the automation of warehousing functions, enabling supporting those functions, to improve warehouse productivity and overcome workforce shortages.

3. Designing more resilient supply chains

Supply chain is a topic that my team and I are focused on every day as we work with our customers to help them bring the art of possible to life in their supply chain operations. As a manufacturer ourselves, we understand the complexities of a global supply chain, and we have transformed two very complex ones of our own. We felt it was important to share our key learnings and best practices with our customers, which is one of the reasons why I am pleased to launch a new video and blog series focused on building a resilient supply chain.

At Hannover Messe, we will bring to life our latest investments and solutions that enable our customers and partners to create a more resilient supply chain.  Dynamics 365 enhances end-to-end supply chain visibility, enables flexible real-time planning and optimizes and automates fulfillment by seamlessly coordinating business processes to mitigate constraints. With Microsoft Teams embedded within the Dynamics 365 supply chain portfolio, collaborating to achieve consensus with internal team members and external partners is more streamlined, and can happen in near real-time. Learn more about these and other updates from our Dynamics 365 team in this blog.

We also have a rich ecosystem of partners — including BlueYonder, o9 Solutions, aThingz, Cosmo Tech, PTC, ParkourSC, and ToolsGroup, to name just some — that offer robust supply chain solutions on the Microsoft platform. These range from digital twins across various functions and nodes of the supply chain ecosystem to real-time insights dashboards that unlock interoperability, visibility, planning and optimum execution of your supply chain. And this is the game changer on how we are helping customers do more in uncertain times.

4. Accelerating the manufacturing sustainability journey

Within manufacturing we have a tremendous opportunity to use the power of technology to achieve environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals, improve sustainability and deliver long-term value for customers. As I meet with leaders around the world, one thing is clear: The path toward net zero is top of mind for everyone. Manufacturers realize the opportunity to build greater sustainability — and resilience — and we realize there is a long and critical road ahead.

Through our technology and our rich partner ecosystem, we are building a critical foundation for a sustainable future. We will feature how the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, available June 1, empowers manufacturers to accelerate their sustainability journey with solutions that unify data and enable comprehensive, integrated and increasingly automated sustainability management. Additionally, Siemens Energy and Microsoft will show how we are partnering to decarbonize countries and industries with innovative renewable energy solutions including the modernization of a power plant from BASF in Schwarzheide, Germany.

These are some of the exciting innovations happening today to help us build a stronger, more resilient and more sustainable tomorrow.

We look forward to seeing you this week at the Microsoft Booth in Hall 4 Stand E34, where you can join guided tours, speak with executives and manufacturing and supply chain experts, and discuss how Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing capabilities and solutions will be empowering intelligent manufacturing around the world.

Tags: Hannover Messe 2022, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, Microsoft Teams

We are excited to return to Hannover Messe in person this year between May 30, 2022 and June 2, 2022. The pandemic has been difficult for most manufacturers, and there are still many lingering challenges—yet, manufacturers are intent on digital transformation to drive resilience. There are several emerging trends that we believe are instrumental to manufacturers’ success in how they operate in 2022 and beyond.

At Hannover Messe this year, we will showcase how Microsoft Dynamics 365 helps manufacturers:

• Transform work with advanced warehousing, robotics, and mixed reality.
• Increase resilience with a predictive supply chain.
• Manufacture and operate sustainably with minimal waste.

Based on a commissioned study with Forrester Consulting, more than 30 percent of manufacturing leaders face visibility challenges with inventory of raw materials, work-in-progress, and finished goods in the distributor network.¹ Manufacturers are adopting a data-driven approach to improving operations, and doing so drives more focused improvements to systems and processes. But one-third of respondents surveyed note their organizations struggle with analyzing and applying the data to drive business and process improvements.

Visibility across operations is useful only if the manufacturers can use that data to drive action, hence the importance to driving both visibility and data improvements. Manufacturers are also keen to overcome distribution-related disruptions. Nearly half (48 percent) of manufacturing leaders expect distribution disruptions such as lack of carrier availability to increase.¹ Demand fluctuations are at their peak, and so flexibility is paramount to meet this changing customer demand on time. However, this cannot come at the expense of front-line workers getting burnt out. It is an imperative to improve processes and conditions for frontline employees.

Lastly, environmental sustainability is a growing priority for manufacturing leaders to address in supply chain. Nearly one-quarter of leaders have improving sustainability metrics as a top digital transformation objective. As manufacturers transform, roughly 30 percent expect a reduced environmental impact as a result of their transformation efforts.¹

Overcome disruptions and shortages with robotics and mixed reality

It is no secret that manufacturing operations have faced—and continue to grapple with—multiple sources of ongoing shortages and disruptions. From port congestion, shipping delays, and material and workforce shortages, to extensive and unforeseen swings in customer demand––today’s current challenges are as varied as they are persistent. However, these challenges have also given rise to innovative solutions capable of providing manufacturers and distributors with the capability to improve operations and overcome workforce shortages and skills gaps.

Robotics and automation are an attractive opportunity in this regard––one that is generating goodwill among industry professionals and driving increases in investment. Most manufacturing executives believe that automation will positively impact their sector. Concurrently, the number of robots sold in North America rose 28 percent in 2021, setting a record of approximately $2 billion in sales.² These points provide the context for our first work transformation innovation that is helping manufacturers and distributors overcome workforce shortages: advances in warehousing with robotics.

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management is designed to incorporate robotics to improve the automation of warehousing functions. This robotic integration and automation capability allows organizations to rapidly stand up and tear down temporary and flexible warehouse capacities closer to their manufacturing sites. Ultimately, these innovations enable companies to support complex warehousing functions, improve warehouse productivity, and overcome workforce shortages.

Contributing to the workforce shortages that manufacturers face is the retirement of a highly skilled and knowledgeable workforce and, to a lesser extent, normal attrition as workers move on to other roles or companies. The learning curve for new team members in a manufacturing environment can often be steep and challenging due to the complexity of numerous processes and machinery that must be operated. This can cause significant disruption to normal operations. 

A key innovation that is helping manufacturers to overcome workforce shortages and close the talent gap is the application of mixed reality to accelerate the onboarding of new employees and rapidly upskill existing team members. Based on the Microsoft-commissioned Forrester Total Economic Impact (TEI) study, manufacturing organizations that have deployed mixed-reality solutions have reduced training time by 75 percent, at an average savings of $30 per labor hour.³

With Microsoft’s mixed-reality solutions, including Dynamics 365 Guides, HoloLens 2, and Dynamics 365 Remote Assist, manufacturers can deliver interactive learning experiences that increase workforce efficiency and flexibility and improve workforce safety by providing hands-free work instructions directly in the field of vision during task execution. Let us see how Toyota Motor North America is boosting operational and training efficiency and scalability with Microsoft’s mixed-reality solutions.

Interested in learning more about how to improve on-the-job guidance or in the benefits of mixed-reality applications in manufacturing? Give our recent blogs, Improve on-the-job guidance with Dynamics 365 Guides and Azure Object Anchors and Watch how to improve on-the-job guidance with mixed reality a read.

Increasing resilience with visibility, insights, and orchestration

When organizations are slow to digitize, they lack the visibility to predict disruptions. They also lack the insights and agility to proactively mitigate these disruptions. At Hannover Messe, we will showcase our latest investments from Dynamics 365 that enhance end-to-end visibility of your supply chain and the production floor, enable flexible real-time planning, and optimize and automate fulfillment by seamlessly orchestrating business processes to proactively mitigate constraints.

These investments from Dynamics 365 are developed to help manufacturers become a composable enterprise. The capabilities are built such that they are interoperable with the manufacturer’s existing supply chain technology infrastructure. They unify data from disparate systems and leverage AI to drive actionable insights. With Microsoft Teams embedded within the Dynamics 365 supply chain portfolio, collaborating to achieve consensus with internal team members and external partners is more streamlined, quick, and almost in near real time.

Manufacturers can further add new revenue lines by moving from fixed revenue to recurring revenue by adding new service offerings. The Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management works seamlessly with Dynamics 365 Field Service so that manufacturers can predict and proactively maintain their customer’s assets.

Dynamics 365 can also integrate with other third-party manufacturing execution systems. This allows manufacturers to unify data in real time across multiple different systems and contextualize the transaction data you get from enterprise resource planning (ERP) and time series data you get from the production floor to proactively looks for inefficiencies and quality issues so that you can improve the overall equipment effectiveness. At the end of the day, these innovations empower manufacturers to create and run more agile and connected factories and more resilient supply chains.

Circular manufacturing advances sustainability

Manufacturers have diligently worked to minimize waste since the ascendancy of lean manufacturing techniques. Now, as the world, governments, and consumers increasingly focus on sustainability, the push is on for manufacturers to reduce another form of waste––carbon dioxide (CO₂). The leading sustainability initiative that brands are investing in worldwide is circular economy or circular manufacturing. This allows customers to recycle products easily. By setting up reverse logistics flows that allow customers to recycle products, manufacturers can not only drive a more sustainable future that is aligned with evolving consumer expectations but can also realize cost savings by utilizing recycled materials to produce new goods.

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management provides organizations with the platform and tools to design manufacturing systems, processes, and products for reuse, minimize waste and emissions, and introduce new revenue streams like subscriptions and buyback programs. At Microsoft, we use these solutions to help us keep our commitment to zero-waste and carbon-negative operations. Our pilot initiative is the Microsoft Circular Centers program, which facilitates the reuse and recycling of servers and hardware within our data centers. To date, the Circular Centers program has reduced carbon emissions by 14,500 metric tons CO₂ equivalent.

With sustainability being a core focus for Microsoft, we are also pleased to announce the general availability of Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability on June 1, 2022. Cloud for Sustainability solutions such as the Sustainability Manager gives organizations the ability to better manage their environmental footprint, embed sustainability throughout their value chain, and make strategic business investments that drive more value.

To learn more about strategies for overcoming disruptions and shortages while also improving sustainability through circular manufacturing strategies and Cloud for Sustainability solutions, see us at Hannover Messe.

Engage with Microsoft at Hannover Messe 2022 

Register for Hannover Messe and visit the Microsoft booth Hall 4 Stand E34, where you can join guided tours and book meetings with Microsoft executives and manufacturing experts on hand to discuss how Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing brings together Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Microsoft Power Platform capabilities that help: 

• Build more agile factories. 
• Transform your workforce. 
• Engage customers in new ways. 
• Create more resilient supply chains. 
• Unlock innovation and new services. 
• Secure manufacturing solutions from edge to cloud. 
• Accelerate your sustainability journey.

Sign-up to tour the Microsoft booth.

We will also be showcasing Dynamics 365 Customer Service, which brings the anytime, anywhere experience through the self-service capability for manufacturers.  

Want to learn more about manufacturing supply chain transformation in 2022? Check out our recent e-book: Six Trends that Are Shaping Supply Chain Transformation for Manufacturers.

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Sources:

¹A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Microsoft. March 2022- Building A More Resilient Future for Manufacturers Through Digital Transformation

²Association for Advancing Automation (A3), 2022. Robot Sales in North America Have Strongest Year Ever in 2021

³Forrester. The Total Economic Impact™ of Mixed Reality Using Microsoft HoloLens 2, commissioned by Microsoft