The Kraft Heinz Company

Gary Kraversky is a highly skilled IT and Business leader with more than 25 years of hands-on experience, empowering and directing technical and business teams to achieve business goals and financial objectives. Gary is recognized as a functional IT leader with a natural ability to engage at all levels to drive technical change and business transformation, specializing in end-to-end supply chain manufacturing systems, as well as business process reengineering and revolutionary digital manufacturing changes. Since 2018, Gary has been leading functional and digital manufacturing teams of IT functional SMEs, Data and Cloud engineers, and BI and UI experts, delivering functional and analytics solutions to support shop floor operations.

What are some of the most prominent challenges in the industry around providing a holistic digital experience?

The most common challenges are the ability to clearly define digital transformation vision, goals, and roadmap. While creating a roadmap your key questions should be, what are your goals, and do you have a strategy to get there? The immediate goals should be aligned with the level of automation you have already deployed on the shop floor and making sure your leadership team has the same picture of the shop floor automation level. Start with a detail review of your current manufacturing areas before beginning your digital transformation journey.

  ​The ability to run a factory at a low operational cost while utilizing a Control Tower that runs the entire plant is the genuine vision for the future of manufacturing   

For example, check if you have adequate LAN and Wi-Fi coverage to support Connected Worker Platform and Control Tower deployments. Does your IT organization have a strategy to certify, deploy, and support industrial mobile devices? How secure is your shop floor network or do you need to do hardware and software upgrades to ensure integral safety and security of your shop floor operation? What is your data and cloud strategy? And do you have an MES that can support your ambitions to move to Digital Twin? All these questions can be answered by conducting readiness level assessments across your manufacturing sites while engaging the right level of IT, OT, and business resources. This is where you must invest a lot of effort in a preliminary study, due diligence, and knowing both the present and the future.

What do you think the future of digital manufacturing experiences looks like?

The way I see it, the future of manufacturing will be in closedloop AI solutions deployed directly on the shop floor of the manufacturing facilities. These closed-loop solutions will be collecting real-time data and making real-time decisions and equipment adjustments based on deviations from your golden standards. For instance, a closed-loop solutions can automatically modify the pace of your filler station if it detects a bottleneck down the line and increases the speed once the bottleneck is cleared. Additionally, rather than requiring an operator to make manual adjustments, this AI system will immediately adjust the process to eliminate any anomalies it finds on the production line. The ability to run a factory at a low operational cost while utilizing a Control Tower that runs the entire plant is the genuine vision for the future of manufacturing.

Do you employ a particular methodology for incorporating these technologies into your process, or is there any project you are engaged in?

We have been exposed to Industry 4.0 for a long time. It refers to the fourth industrial revolution and it is a game-changer in the history of manufacturing. The methodology we are working on is called Agile@Scale. We first start with a limited pilot to develop and deliver the required functionality using Agile methodology. If the pilot produces the expected set of results, we then scale it up to the final product. Thus, the name Agile@Scale. This is the methodology most companies are currently moving towards.

For projects and initiatives, we are currently working on Operational Control Tower, Closed-Loop AI platform, and Digital Twin, among many others.

What guidance would you offer to your peers or aspirants in this field?

I strongly believe that Industry 4.0 requirements and needs are different for each company, but this industrial revolution requires strong technology foundation. Your digital transformation will not be successful if you don't invest in technology. So, create your digital transformation vision, build your detail roadmap, evaluate your existing operational and technology landscape, and start investing into the 21st-century technologies that will propel your operations forward.