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2.1 The pervasiveness of ICT in contemporary manufacturing
Through its capacity to integrate and blend a number of knowledge intensive technologies, ICT can enable Australia’s traditional manufacturing base to be competitive in a global environment. Innovative use of ICT can result in new sales channels, new product capabilities and product differentiation. ICT can also reduce costs, increase productivity and improve the base for strategic decision-making and risk management. These results should be reflected in enhanced business performance – as indicated by sustained profitability and viability.
A distinction is often made in the manufacturing sector between information technology, which relates to the corporate and business activities of a company, and process control, which relates to the management of production activities. As process control devices move from electrical to electronic (and from analogue to digital) instrumentation, and incorporate more integrated circuitry with a capacity to generate very substantial amounts of information, the technological distinction between ICT and process control becomes blurred.
The study confirms the pervasiveness of ICT throughout the manufacturing industry. The scope of ICT embraces:
- Corporate systems that are oriented towards enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM) and customer relationship management (CRM).
- Manufacturing systems such as product lifecycle management (including computer assisted design and manufacture (CAD/CAM)) and process execution (such as supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems).
- Control systems for programmable logic controllers (PLCs), robots and other hardware embedded in machines and equipment
- Monitoring and surveillance systems used in relation to functions such as security, health and occupational safety, and the building and work environment.
- Extensive incorporation of ICT in products and services.
The pervasive role of ICT in manufacturing has been largely overlooked in contemporary discussion and commentary relating to the information and knowledge economy. For example: ICT enabled devices used in production operations are usually described as ‘control hardware’ and the software that drives them as ‘process control systems’; production machinery and a large range of industrial equipment that incorporate ICT hardware and software, including precision tools and welding devices, are rarely described as computer equipment.
Whilst having the technical characteristics of computers, these ICT enabled devices and equipment do not look like computers in that they do not have screens, keyboards, mice and other peripherals attached to them.
Common measures of ICT intensity in industry are frequently based on counts of the screens and keyboards – presupposing an office paradigm and a services sector orientation. For example, MIS Magazine assesses Australian ICT usage based on screen counts. A better measure might be one couched in terms of the overall level of programmable processing capacity. ICT intensity defined in terms of programmed processing units would provide a better indicator of integrated or embedded ICT across all industry sectors.
Given the pervasiveness of ICT, the potential for ICT enabled productivity and performance improvement goes far beyond electronic commerce and merchandising across the Internet. However, the study indicates that as with all technologies, the impact of ICT in manufacturing derives from the way in which technologies are adopted, applied and used in business contexts.
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