Don't bend the rules - change the game

George Bernard Shaw famously said “Progress is impossible without change".

This gives us a simple choice: we can sit back and let change happen to us, or we can be catalysts for change ourselves. At Desoutter, we very much embrace the latter approach.

Our innovation program ensures that existing Desoutter products are continuously improved upon to boost flexibility, boost performance and boost up-time. However, there comes a moment when the existing product parameters have been pushed as far as they can. At this point, we have to take a step away from our existing approach, however successful it may have been, and ask whether there is a better way of achieving our aims. Some people call this going back to first principles: I call it the ‘game-changer moment’.

Desoutter is making significant progress with a new concept for assembly applications which I certainly believe justifies the term “game-changer”. The key driver is the growing demand from our customers for tools and software that will enable Industry 4.0.

We therefore considered how we can develop a practical means of facilitating the transition to Industry 4.0 ways of working by supporting numerous applications from a single point. While I can’t give too much away at this stage, I can say that the solution will revolutionize our customers’ ways of working. It will enable multi-tool management with more connectivity and flexibility than anything currently available – and with less hardware required on the production line.

Of course, starting again also means we can assess techniques and technologies from other sectors to see if they can deliver the benefits we are looking for. Application-based customization is one area that figures strongly in our development: enabling customers to reconfigure their assembly lines within minutes rather than hours. It's never an easy decision to tear up the rules and start again – but the results can be extremely rewarding, especially for customers ready to make the next step towards Industry 4.0 implementation. I hope this brief insight has whetted your appetite for change: look out for launch news later this year.