One manufacturer ran 100 digitalization initiatives at once. Money left the company before anyone asked which ones produced results. At IIoT World Manufacturing Days 2023, panelists from Siemens, A1 Digital, Mestec, and HiveMQ explained why production directors should own factory digitalization, what causes projects to stall, and how to start.
What Happens When IT Leads Factory Digitalization?
Factory digitalization led by IT without production involvement produces four recurring failure patterns: initiative sprawl, communication silos, missing infrastructure, and analysis paralysis.
A command to “just digitize” arrives from above without a clear strategic vision. The people who actually operate the machines have no stake in the outcome. They were not involved in defining what transformation means, and the project carries that gap from day one.
Communication silos between departments compound the problem. One panelist referenced the 1987 King’s Cross fire in London, where departments inside the station operated independently, refused to act on warnings from other departments, and became defensive when faults were pointed out across boundaries. Rebecca Henderson’s Harvard Business School paper “Architectural Innovation” documents the same dynamic in engineering organizations: design departments strip context from their work before passing it to engineering, filtering out the information that would let engineers contribute earlier and more effectively.
Missing infrastructure makes leadership gaps more visible. If a plant does not have a functioning network to transfer data, no digitalization software on top of it will work. One panelist compared it to building a house without a foundation.
Deep upfront analysis campaigns drain teams of energy before any implementation begins, leaving organizations that have spent months studying a problem with no working deployment to show for it.
Why Should Production Teams Lead Factory Digitalization?
Production teams should lead factory digitalization because they know which data the plant needs, when it needs it, and how it connects to operational results.
When delivery teams work independently from site operations, implementations lose contact with the problems they were built to solve. Technology gets deployed without a clear link to value.
Management commitment matters beyond the proof-of-concept stage. Leadership approves exploratory work but never changes the organization around the results. Teams build something that works in a controlled setting, and no one at the executive level turns it into an operational standard.
| Factor | IT-Led Digitalization | Production-Led Digitalization |
| Data decisions | Central IT selects tools without production input | Production teams define what data they need, when, and why |
| Project structure | Multiple initiatives running with no shared roadmap | Prioritized roadmap based on current infrastructure assessment |
| Team involvement | Top-down command; operators have no stake in the outcome | Cross-functional teams including operators and external advisers |
How to Start
Three steps give the process structure:
- Define why the digitalization matters. If the reason is competitiveness, that determines which KPIs to track. If the reason is speed to market, as it is in pharmaceuticals, the scope and sequencing change.
- Assess the current situation honestly. What systems exist, what automation level is in place, whether the plant has basic connectivity.
- Build a prioritized roadmap from that assessment rather than launching initiatives in parallel without a plan.
Who Should Be at the Table
Cross-functional teams bridge the gap between the people who understand the process and the people who can implement the technology. An external adviser can ask uncomfortable questions and mediate between departments without the political weight that internal teams carry.
A second audience poll reflected the same emphasis on operations:
| Goal | % of Respondents |
| Identifying bottlenecks and improving efficiency | 38% |
| Visibility of operations | 27% |
| Access to real-time data | 25% |
FAQ
1. Who should lead factory digitalization projects?
Production directors should lead factory digitalization. Production teams understand what data they need, when they need it, and why. At a 2023 IIoT World Manufacturing Days panel, a Mestec adviser stated that she had never heard of a digital transformation failing because the technology did not work. Projects fail because the wrong team leads them, and management approves proof-of-concept work without committing to organizational change.
2. What happens when the wrong team leads digitalization?
When central IT or disconnected leadership teams run factory digitalization, four patterns appear: initiative sprawl where 100 simultaneous projects run with no coherence, communication silos between departments, missing foundational infrastructure such as basic network connectivity, and analysis paralysis that drains teams before implementation begins. Forty-three percent of manufacturers polled named production streamlining as their top challenge.
3. How do communication silos block digitalization projects?
Departments that operate independently filter out context before passing information to other teams, reducing their ability to contribute. Rebecca Henderson’s Harvard Business School paper “Architectural Innovation” documents this dynamic in engineering organizations. In manufacturing digitalization, it appears when decisions are handed down as top-down commands without involving the people who operate the equipment, resulting in low motivation and misaligned goals.
4. Where should manufacturers start with factory digitalization?
A Siemens digitalization adviser recommended three steps: define why digitalization matters (competitiveness, speed to market, or cost reduction), assess current infrastructure honestly (automation level, connectivity, installed systems), and build a prioritized roadmap from that baseline. Starting without assessing infrastructure was compared to building a house without a foundation. Twenty-nine percent of manufacturers polled ranked high cost of operations as their top challenge.
Related from IIoT World:
How UNS Prepares Manufacturing Data for AI
Build a Factory Digital Twin in 14 Weeks
Agentic AI in Manufacturing: ROI vs. Reality
Sources:
IIoT World Manufacturing Days 2023, panel: “The Essential Components of Digital Transformation in Manufacturing.”
This article is based on a panel discussion, “The Essential Components of Digital Transformation in Manufacturing,” with Dominique Chabauty, Head of Digitalization Consulting for Process Industries at Siemens; Keyanoush Razavidinani, Digital Business Consultant at A1 Digital; Ravi Subramanyan, then Director of Industry Solutions at HiveMQ, now Senior Director at SymphonyAI; and Nicole Ballantyne, Head of Customer Success and Partnerships at Mestec, now part of Eyelit Technologies; moderated by Hamish Mackenzie at IIoT World Manufacturing Days 2023. AI tools were used to help summarize and organize the content. Reviewed and edited by the IIoT World editorial team.
