Course Description

This four-week, non-credit course, is designed for manufacturing leaders that want to develop or enhance the strategic plan for implementing smart manufacturing in their own organization. You will work with a world-class, experienced practitioner-mentor and the CESMII Smart Manufacturing Acceleration Framework to assess your organization’s current state, develop an aligned future state vision, and create a draft roadmap that leverages technology where it is needed to achieve your organization’s business objectives.

You’ll exit the course with a comprehensive understanding and experience to complete the roadmap development process in your work setting. This is a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) ProCourse and a CESMII-Endorsed Smart Manufacturing course.

If you are a consultant, coach or advisor to manufacturing companies, you should take the Smart Manufacturing Acceleration Roadmap Professional Certification Course. This course is designed for the internal manufacturing team working through the process with an external coach.

Coursework
You’ll begin by exploring smart manufacturing capabilities, then utilize an assessment tool to solicit colleagues’ perspectives on your organization’s current state across six critical smart manufacturing areas. With your assessment results in-hand, you’ll conduct deep-dive interviews with stakeholders to investigate alignment and opportunities across each area—leading to the articulation of a desired future state. You’ll then build a strategic roadmap that defines business objectives for each critical area, programs and initiatives to support those objectives, and a realistic timeline to achieve the future state. 

Technology & Logistics
You will complete all coursework through Rensselaer at Work’s digital classroom environment, with guidance and contextualized feedback from your mentor along the way. Synchronous sessions will be held via Zoom each week in the evenings, which will provide an opportunity to connect with your mentor and engage with the content in a live setting. In addition, your mentor will be available to provide one-on-one coaching throughout the course. As a participant, you will also receive access to Rensselaer at Work’s expansive digital resource library.

Audience
This non-credit course is designed for manufacturers who seek to initiate digital transformation in their organization. Teams are welcome to attend for accelerated results. No prior education is required. 

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Objectives

Completion of this course enables you to:

• Develop a strategic plan focused on digital transformation in the supply chain to meet or exceed the goals and objectives identified by your organization.
• Leverage the six-step Smart Manufacturing Acceleration Framework process to prioritize high-value target areas and optimize people, processes, and technology to achieve your organization’s goals.
• Identify the benefits of smart manufacturing within the context of your organization, mapping technological capabilities to opportunities, needs, and culture.
• Utilize a self-assessment tool and state transition matrix to establish your organization’s current state across six critical smart manufacturing areas.
• Develop a future state vision that aligns employee insights, identified challenges, smart manufacturing-enabled possibilities, leadership investment, and other factors.
• Create a strategic roadmap that articulates, prioritizes, and schedules initiatives to support business objectives.