Transformer manufacturers have a tough job competing globally, as it is a traditional, highly legacy driven, price-sensitive that also demands high reliability. With shareholders targeting to improve profits, manufacturers tend to focus on production capacity, flexibility, and improving production processes. On the contrary, when production goes global, the product development process faces critical hallenges in localisation of design and production, transnational design collaboration and meeting local regulations and standards. Therefore, it becomes key to international success. Digital transformation is a lever for transforming the product development process to realise the success of the global expansion. The article covers proven technologies from other industries and captures customers’ requirements to order execution by managing product complexity. System driven product development can be used as a tool for system thinking by adapting modularisation, knowledge management, and design automation in engineering design processes. A combination of these technologies can be successfully used to build a paperless factory and product digital twin. This article acts as a guide to top managers in defining proven approaches to the digital transformation of the product development process and hence to achieve success.
Digital transformation in the product development of transformers is an important lever to increase profitability in transformer manufacturing. Digital transformation is a top management topic and needs a strategic approach. If appropriately addressed, it has the ability to transform the entire business. This encompasses multiple important functions, from customer requirements, product portfolio management, complexity management, design and development, manufacturing support, supply chain management. All these need to be integrated with a digital thread by analysing the existing process in four layers: product development process, sub-process, objects, and IT architecture. Following a combination of the top-down and bottom-up approach, management can successfully convert
the benefits of digital transformation into balance sheet figures