Dave Rauch
Senior Vice President – Worldwide Manufacturing Operations, Western Digital
Dave Rauch
Senior Vice President – Worldwide Manufacturing Operations, Western Digital
About Dave Rauch:
Rauch oversees worldwide manufacturing of hard drives, including operations, manufacturing engineering and data systems. With more than 30 years of experience in technology-based companies, he has held positions in operations, engineering and program management. The hard disk drive business is fast-paced with many technical challenges, including rapid technology transitions, dynamic market cycles and competitive operational requirements. Rauch has worked for companies ranging in size from startup to $16 billion in annual revenue. Prior to joining Western Digital, Rauch worked in the optical telecommunications and solar industries, commercializing innovative products and expanding product portfolios.
About his case study:
At the Industry of Things World USA 2018 Dave Rauch held a keynote presentation with the title “Insights from an ongoing – global IIoT manufacturing excellence transformation project.”
Dave Rauch: The Industrial Internet has can be viewed in multiple ways. I view it as end to end connectivity across a factory process flow, or across multiple factory floors, encompassing product data, process data, equipment data and attribute data.
Being able to access these sets of data in a combined way, either for analytical purposes, improved control purposes or predictive maintenance will capture significant value that today is unrecognized in many industrial cases.
Dave Rauch: It’s a big change, and big changes take time. Depending on the situation, there may be different challenges, but there will be multiple ones. Examples may be infrastructure related to obtain the connectivity required, the distributed nature of legacy data collections, incoherent sampling plans, or risk of disruption to current operations. These can be major hurdles in getting where you want to go.
Dave Rauch: Absolutely true, not only new techniques are required, but cultural changes in mind set, and overcoming people’s fears that the adoption of the Industrial Internet does not threaten their job.
Dave Rauch: Our major current challenge is what I call the “democratization of the data”. We have a significant amount of data in our Big Data Platform, but making it accessible to large sets of employees in a consumable way is a common theme.
Dave Rauch: Our mantra is “Think Big, Start Small”. That means to have a vision, know where you want to end up and what capability you want to have, but do it in small steps and ensure that you recognize value along the way.
Dave Rauch: A number of principals on our Analytics team recommended to me that we have a participation, and to share where we have come on our journey. I hope that we can help others to learn how to move forward on their own programs, to learn from others as well, and to talk with other people on this topic.
Dave Rauch: There is much information published about IIoT, its benefits, and how it will transform manufacturing. But it was difficult to find out how to structure a program that leads to the desired result. I approach the topic as a program manager might, and what are the elements that help get organized on an analytics initiative.
Dave Rauch: Although it will be a challenge, the rewards will not only be worth it, it might mean the difference between having a competitive company or being at a competitive disadvantage.