On the Road to a Manufacturing Transformation: Daimler Trucks Goes Digital

Manufacturing is alive and well in the United States, even in the most unlikely places – such as the beautiful Pacific North West. The manufacturing renaissance in North America and the resurgence of the freight and transportation industries has powered the recent growth of the trucking industry. Our customer Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA) is riding this growth with their successful enterprise network upgrade.

DTNA is one of the biggest employers in Portland and is known for the power, reliability, and innovation of its vehicles. With brand names such as Western Star, Freightliner, Detroit, and Thomas, their leading-edge trucks may remind you of Optimus Prime in the Transformers movies. On the way to film the story, we were excited to see this poster greet us at the airport:

 

DTNA CIO Dieter Haban, a 2014 MIT Sloan CIO Finalist, drove a full network transformation at the Western Star production facility including:

• Pervasive wireless connectivity which lets employees and machines stay connected across the entire factory
• A shared network (by combining both plant operations and the corporate network) to keep managers more informed and to predict production and supply chain issues faster
• Robust security to help DTNA meet compliance needs

https://youtu.be/zi_Y1zYnALg

The business outcomes were outstanding, including:

• Improved visibility to improve business agility and minimize production issues
• The implementation of a manufacturing execution system and adoption of new innovative tools on the manufacturing floor
• Improved mobile communication to maximize uptime and collaboration within the company and with external partners
• Enhanced asset and part tracking to make operations more efficient

We are excited to continue to work with DTNA as they become even more digital across their various factories, leveraging the Western Star Portland project as an architectural template.

More details on how DTNA transformed their manufacturing operations are in the full case study.

This case study is also featured in the following Cisco Blogs:

Chris White and Joe Kann’s blog: Digital Manufacturing Drives Innovation at Daimler Trucks

Chet Namboodri’s blog: Under the Hood: How Daimler Trucks Drove Its Manufacturing Transformation