9MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY INSIGHTSAUGUST - 2023costs to provide a healthy ROI. Meanwhile, we'll build experience in automation and budgeting for large-scale projects, both of which will help us continue to design and implement valuable projects in the future. With the strategy team's assistance, Mitsubishi Power invested in a novel robotic system to clean the cooling holes in turbine blades and vanes and eliminate previous production delays.Finding opportunities in the big pictureA strategic mindset can help with much more than production-line bottlenecks. Strategists can also find opportunities in broader market trends. For example, sustainability standards and aspirations are forcing companies to think more carefully about the ways their manufacturing processes affect people and the environment. Strategic decisions to explore incorporating renewable electricity may help reduce emissions while saving on power. When our team studied the potential cost savings of rooftop solar, we found that a 1.75-megawatt system would fit on the rooftop of the facility and yield returns of 10%-12% every year in savings.At Mitsubishi Power's plant in Savannah, Ga., the strategy team championed a sprawling rooftop solar system. To stay at the forefront of technology, you have to stay abreast of fast-evolving technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and understand recent breakthroughs such as ChatGPT to assess their potential use. We've already begun to invest in predictive analytic sensor technology in anticipation of switching from reactive to proactive maintenance, which incorporates machine and algorithm learning. This shift is key to our long-term strategy. When you wait and react to an unexpected maintenance issue, you create cascading problems, from planned labor that's suddenly unable to work, expedited and pricier shipping for parts and materials and strained relations between operations and maintenance teams, which erode the trust between them. But a proactive approach leverages AI to analyze real-time data and identify equipment issues before they occur. This allows teams to plan for any necessary downtime and align on priorities. Broadening the scope of risk assessmentStrategists also approach risk analysis from a different perspective, looking at interconnected processes across a facility. For example, when we assessed an aging acid-stripping line, we noted that a failure could have knock-effects far beyond the line itself -- to the point that it could shut down our operations. With this insight, we decided to build a new line in parallel, incorporating new technologies and built-in redundancies to run more efficiently and reliably. Our risk assessment demonstrated that this option, while expensive, provided the greatest value given the potential downside of outsourcing alternatives. Today, we're better equipped to service all the parts in our operation that need stripping, and we've mitigated the risk of a single-point failure that could grind production to a halt. As the world becomes less predictable and technology continues to change rapidly, it's more important than ever to be flexible and forward-looking. Strategists can help advocate for identified breakthroughs with the potential to radically reduce costs and make a compelling case to change obsolete mindsets in order to implement those breakthroughs. Having an effective champion of ideas in place -- someone thinking like a strategist -- can augment a relentlessly creative and innovative culture with a steady stream of possibilities to consider, vet, and develop.
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