Where does AI adoption and OT actually stand today? And where's the gap between the hype and what's really happening on the plant floor?

So I love this question because it shows how widespread and broad a concept like AI actually is.

It's one of the very few technologies that is completely ubiquitous in its application and its reach.

It touches every role in every function, in every department, in every company, everywhere.

So because of that, AI adoption is actually really hard to pinpoint.

you will get widely different answers from different studies.

And trust me, I've read probably most of them.

Is AI going to exploit things and make things insecure? And how do they deal with that?

Why do so many manufacturers struggle to turn a lot of those proven concepts, and there's already a business case around a lot of these things, into a really clear path forward?

Industry 4.0 is one of those terms that everyone uses, at least in the world that I'm in, but not everyone uses it the same way or thinks it means the same thing when they say it.

And that's why I've learned over time that it can mean both an era that we're living in as well as a future destination.

And those are drastically different ways to think about it, and neither are right and neither are wrong.

Historically, the term Industry 4.0 came out of Germany's Around 2011, it was kind of like famously introduced at Hanover Messe as a way to describe the fourth major industrial era.

You know, the first was mechanization.

The second was mass production and electricity.

We're kind of in the era already, but what does it really require? And when a manufacturer is serious about digital transformation, from your perspective, What has to be true inside the organization before the technology, as you rightly have mentioned in your previous comment, that can actually create value? You mentioned human centricity, which I'd love to hear more about that.

So what is it that you see manufacturers most commonly getting wrong when they when they start on this journey or on this path toward smart factory?

great segue and uh part of it is because that's a high level i'll call inspirational definition but it doesn't provide any clarity of purpose so this is where i'd say there's really three interrelated ideas that would make it here the first is clarity of purpose the second is everything being labeled transformation and third is transformation being treated like a project So starting with clarity of purpose, it's really hard for companies and leaders to describe what their factory looks like at the end of any sort of transformation journey.

Smart manufacturing.

Hey, we're building a smart factory.

I'd say poor companies have no answer, like not companies that aren't doing it well.

Good companies can explain the new capabilities that are gained at the end.

But they can't actually describe how those capabilities translate into a new way of working, how the factory is different than when it was before.

All this technological stuff you've talked about so far is great, but why? Why are you doing it? Not because it's not a good idea, but help understand or help articulate why you want to do this and how it's going to improve your business, your customer experience, your employee experience, whatever it is, whatever objectives you're trying to accomplish.