Smart manufacturing maturity assessments seem to be everywhere these days. Some are lead generation tools, used to gather information and qualify a sales prospect. Others are in-depth evaluations of technology, process, and people across a manufacturing organisation. Some limit themselves to broad, sweeping generalisations (like this one!). Others are rigorous and carefully researched models of an idealised manufacturing operation. Most lie somewhere between these extremes.

Forrester is currently conducting research to help our clients understand how these tools are used in the manufacturing sector, and we need your help.

We’re kicking off with a short online survey, which will be open until 18 January. If your organisation offers a tool to customers and/or prospects, or if your organisation has used one of these tools internally, we definitely want to hear from you. The QR code in this post links to the survey, which is also available at this link here. In January and February, we’ll follow up with more in-depth interviews with a cross-section of organisations creating or using these assessments: The survey invites interested organisations to provide their contact details for that follow-up.

As we prepare for this research, we’re currently defining a smart manufacturing maturity assessment tool as “a standardised set of questions, used to assess the maturity of an organisation’s smart manufacturing initiatives, which are normally delivered using a software-based tool.” Survey responses may broaden (or narrow) that definition slightly before we’re finished.

This research will result in a report and webinar in the spring, summarising our findings and making recommendations. I’m keen to ensure that we provide plenty of examples of the tools that firms use today, so if you have one or use one, please take the opportunity to share it in the survey.