Design Thinking – Maximising Industry 4.0 Innovation Through The Human-Centred Dimension

There is an immediate need within manufacturing to shift structurally from low value-added sectors to high value-added sectors. Hence to enable this transition along with spending on R&D, sectors would require adopting advanced digital technologies and build a connected ecosystem. The revolution under way would be around the real possibility of using all or most of the advanced technologies to achieve both the optimisation of production system and addressing the gap between manufacturing and digital spaces. Parallel to the availability of enabling technologies, the manufacturing system has evolved and been meshed with design thinking.

Design Thinking Approach – An immediate pattern

Design practices have a pivotal role now in the transformation journey. Industry 4.0 would involve the ability to operate in a disruptive manner that generates solutions aligned to a customer’s specific problem. Thus, the people-centric design thinking process helps companies in bringing together all the intelligent technologies for redefining customer experience and building smart business models. Over a period, organisations would need a platform to tackle the complex business challenges, developing solutions with less iterations and monetising it at a later stage. Building a groundbreaking value proposition implies for a design thinking framework that can be implemented in any industrial sector. However, pinning on the use case remains a significant concern. Organisations should have a well-defined use case in place to apply the design thinking approach which pulls an idea through the execution stage.