Companies invest in smart manufacturing technology, the technology works, yet the operational results still disappoint. Pilots succeed in controlled conditions and then quietly fade when the dedicated team moves on. Projects deliver dashboards that nobody uses. Investments that looked solid on paper produce no measurable change in how the plant actually runs.
In continuous process manufacturing — with paper machines, rolling mills, extrusion lines and coating lines — consistent patterns like these repeat themselves in digital transformation programs. I have worked in these environments for over two decades. A recent CESMII annual workshop on smart manufacturing helped me put into words why this keeps happening. I am writing this for engineers and operations leaders who have been in discussions about how the technology worked, but the result still did not land. May my takeaways be your lessons.
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