Assessing Digital Transformation: A Closer Look at the Smart Industry Readiness Index Maximizing the Benefits of Siri for Life Sciences Manufacturing Plants

Our Understanding of the Smart Industry Readiness Framework (SIRI)

The Smart Industry Readiness Index (SIRI) is a comprehensive framework developed by the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB). Its purpose is to assess and guide companies on their digital transformation journey toward becoming smart factories or smart industries. SIRI provides a structured approach to evaluate an organization's readiness and maturity in adopting advanced manufacturing technologies and practices. The SIRI framework consists of four key dimensions:

Technology: This dimension evaluates the company's technological infrastructure, including connectivity, data management, cybersecurity, and digital capabilities. It assesses the company's ability to deploy and integrate technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and analytics.

Process: The process dimension focuses on the company's operational processes and practices. It assesses the level of automation, standardization, optimization, and flexibility in production processes. It also considers factors like lean manufacturing, supply chain management, quality control, and continuous improvement.

Organization: This dimension evaluates the company's organizational readiness, culture, and capabilities to drive digital transformation. It assesses aspects such as leadership commitment, change management, talent development, and collaboration within and outside the organization.

People: The people dimension considers the skills, knowledge, and capabilities of the company's workforce to embrace and utilize advanced manufacturing technologies effectively. It assesses the availability of talent, training programs, workforce engagement, and the organization's efforts to foster a digital mindset among employees.

The SIRI framework provides a holistic view of an organization's readiness and maturity in adopting smart manufacturing practices. It enables companies to identify gaps, prioritize areas for improvement, and develop a roadmap for digital transformation. By leveraging SIRI, organizations can enhance their competitiveness, productivity, and innovation in the rapidly evolving landscape of smart industries. Below figure depicts the SIRI framework in a nutshell:

Typically, a SIRI assessment takes around 1.5 months and consists of three phases that leverage the TIER Framework and different KPIs categories. It can only be conducted by a certified SIRI assessor, and the figure below depicts the SIRI Execution Methodology:

Our Point of View (POV) on the SIRI Framework for Life Sciences

This section covers the strengths of the SIRI framework as well as its shortfalls.

Our Assessment of the Benefits of the SIRI Framework for Life Sciences:

The SIRI Framework is a valuable tool for assessing Industry 4.0 readiness and provides a solid basis for progressing in the digital transformation journey of a manufacturing plant. The figure below highlights the strengths of the SIRI framework.

The SIRI framework has matured over time and has conducted over 2000 assessments, enabling benchmarking and maturity ranking with a comprehensive question bank.

Our View on the Shortcomings in the SIRI Framework:

While there are many strengths to conducting a SIRI assessment, there are also a few shortcomings. For instance, the questionnaire bank used for these engagements should be industry-specific, which is currently not the case. Additionally, there is limited interaction with business stakeholders, which can hinder obtaining business buy-in at a later stage. Ideally, a playback session should be conducted, covering the understanding of core manufacturing business process flows, systems used, pain points, and key persona views after the workshop with business representatives from each function.

This will help validate the current state (As-Is), followed by a separate detailed session on the possibilities for each business function. Once the possibilities are discussed and identified, further conversations with business stakeholders to prioritize the use cases would facilitate their buy-in for the final report.

Currently, there is minimal interaction of about 3 to 4 days with business stakeholders during the SIRI assessment. However, the approach mentioned above would require regular engagement of a few weeks with business stakeholders. While this may consume more time from the assessor's perspective, it would involve approximately 2 hours for the As-Is session, 30 minutes for the playback session to ensure understanding, 45 minutes to 1 hour for art of possible discussions, prioritization, and a final readout of 1 hour. Overall, this approach would require approximately 5 hours of time per business function but would establish a strong connection and appreciation from the business functions.

Also, the aforementioned approach would ensure the documentation of processes, process flows, existing IT and OT architecture, and convergence, which might not be available or up to date in a few cases. Additionally, it would provide a high-level reference architecture for the digitalization journey, accompanied by a clear-cut implementation plan for use cases.

The figure below illustrates the shortcomings of the SIRI Framework based on our understanding.

Proposed Way Forward After SIRI Assessment for Life Sciences

While SIRI provides the foundation to move forward on the Industry 4.0 journey, it should be complemented with a detailed assessment of prioritized dimensions to develop a plan for short-term, mid-term, and long-term objectives for the prioritized use cases. This should be an iterative process that incorporates implementation learnings and further refines the roadmap to ensure tangible benefits for the business, rather than a mere paper report. It will also help identify champions within the core manufacturing business community. The figure below depicts the suggested way forward based on our thought process.1

• 1References: https://siri.incit.org/frameworks-tools