这家英国包装制造商启动了以 AWS 为中心的数字化转型，旨在更好地利用数据实现更高效的业务成果，包括减少对环境的影响。
英国跨国包装巨头 DS Smith 致力于实现雄心勃勃的可持续发展目标，其在单一云上实现标准化的 IT 战略将是一个关键的推动因素。
这家总部位于伦敦的工业制造商目前由于早期实验和多次收购而运行多个云平台，作为五年战略合作伙伴关系的一部分，该公司选择将其云和数据运营整合到亚马逊网络服务上，该合作伙伴关系与该公司尽可能取代塑料材料、简化碳足迹和大幅减少制造过程中用水量的时间表相吻合——所有这些都将得到燃料显着通过技术和数据。 数字化转型网www.szhzxw.cn
“从历史上看，我们更倾向于使用多云或混合云，也提供私有服务，”DS Smith 的首席信息官 Claire Dickson 说。“我们的大部分数字议程都围绕着数据。以前，我们在不同的技术上非常分散。对我们来说，与 AWS 建立全面合作伙伴关系更像是一个战略方向，因为使用一个堆栈是最有效的方法。
这家拥有 30,000 名员工的公司在全球 300 多个制造基地（主要在欧洲）为包括亚马逊、联合利华和雀巢在内的大客户生产纤维基和再生纸包装，尽管该公司在亚特兰大也有一家工厂。
其数字化转型始于应用程序现代化阶段，在这个阶段，Dickson 和她的 IT 团队决定哪些应用程序应该托管在公共云中，哪些应该保留在私有云上。迁移仍处于早期阶段，旨在从过去十年中 AWS 平台上学到的效率、经过验证的可持续发展战略以及数据和分析的进步中受益。
总部位于布拉格的 IDC 分析师 Jan Burian 认为，DS Smith 在 AWS 上的整合将提高公司以更高的效率实现其可持续发展目标的能力。 数字化转型网www.szhzxw.cn
“从可持续发展的角度来看，利用云平台可以端到端地解锁公司的数据及其价值链的数据，”Burian 说。“这使公司能够通过实时可用性和情境化从数据中提取额外价值。因此，通过数据驱动的规划和运营管理，对降低能源成本、减少碳足迹、降低生产浪费成本以及提高设备和劳动力利用率有直接影响。
1. 奠定数据基础
DS Smith 数字化计划的四大支柱围绕着管理和优化工业机器、能源供应商、供应链和客户体验生成的数据。Dickson说，单一云平台战略将包括用于40多个企业应用程序自动化的SaaS合作伙伴。其他应用程序将以直接迁移的方式迁移，而其他遗留应用程序将从头开始重建。该公司的运营总共依赖于 700 个应用程序。 数字化转型网www.szhzxw.cn
作为一家最近进行了大量收购的老牌公司，其数百家工厂的一些工作仍然是体力劳动，而另一些则是带有机器人升降调色板的全自动仓库。Dickson说，实现来自这些不同站点的数据集的一致性是DS Smith分析战略以及公司技术和商业模式预期变化不可或缺的一部分。
“我们正在将来自所有这些应用程序的数据输送到同一个环境中，”Dickson 谈到该战略时说，并指出来自工业机器、能源供应商、业务系统和客户的数据将驻留在同一个 AWS 数据湖中，这将有助于部署 AWS 数据分析工具——这是公司数字议程的首要任务之一。
Dickson说：“我们收集了大量关于机器性能、振动数据、温度数据、化学数据的传感器数据，我们希望对这些数据集进行性能组合。“将这些数据保存在云中并将其输送到我们的数据管道中是一种更有效的方法。”
首席信息官说，能源优化是DS Smith数据和可持续发展管道的另一个关键方面。
“我们在机器中安装了能源计量，这样我们就可以优化能源消耗，这对我们来说是一个很大的重头戏。我们希望使用 AWS 进行 ESG 报告，这根据您运营所在的地区而略有不同，“她说。“AWS 中的数据功能是我们合作的关键原因。” 数字化转型网www.szhzxw.cn
除了作为亚马逊供应商之外，DS Smith 决定主要押注云提供商是许多企业的典型做法，并且出于各种原因都有意义，IDC 的 Burian 表示，包括创建无孤岛的数据环境、提供数据和运营流程的透明度，以及利用 AWS 的扩展技术（如物联网）的能力。 机器学习、数据湖和分析服务。
“AWS 不仅是基于云的基础设施的领导者，而且还为 AI 和分析提供了一套全面的技术，”Burian 说。
Dickson表示，DS Smith还计划将虚拟私有云用于一些企业数据，使其具有灵活性和可控性。
总体而言，Dickson为DS Smith制定的IT议程反映了大多数欧洲、中东和非洲地区首席信息官的议程，根据Foundry的首席信息官状况调查，他们将数据分析（30%）、应用程序现代化（30%）和云（30%）列为今年推动IT投资最多的五大技术计划中的三个。 数字化转型网www.szhzxw.cn
至于排名第二的机器学习/人工智能（2%），这家包装公司有三个用例进行概念验证。Dickson 还正在制定生成式 AI 议程，并相信，一旦公司将其数据普遍存储并开发了机器学习模型，就可以继续在 AWS 上构建大型语言模型 （LLM），从而产生更高效的业务成果。
在这里，Dickson 认为其工业机器产生的数据非常高效。“我们计划完全托管它。我们不会将这些数据提供给其他任何人，我们将使用我们自己的数据集训练生成式人工智能模型，“她说。
2. 以目标为导向的 IT
Dickson说，在这些更具生产力的业务成果中，最主要的是实现DS Smith的可持续发展目标。
为此，该公司正在采取积极措施取代包装中使用的“问题塑料”，并开发了为期 14 天的建模、设计、制造和向客户运送盒子的循环流程，她说，并补充说，作为其“循环经济”目标的一部分，DS Smith 正在使用视频成像技术来识别回收包中的塑料，并计划到 2030 年回收或再利用其所有包装。
到 2030 年，该公司还计划将零废物送往垃圾填埋场，使其运营和价值链脱碳，并根据《巴黎协定》将其全球气温上升限制在 1.5 度以内。该公司还预计将对天然气的依赖减少25%，这意味着每年将减少50,000吨二氧化碳排放。 数字化转型网www.szhzxw.cn
事实上，DS Smith 对 ESG 的承诺是首席信息官接手这份工作的关键原因。
“我们确实将可持续发展作为我们工作的核心，”Dickson说，并补充说该公司今年秋天宣布成立R8研发中心，以开发可持续包装。“我们是一家非常有目标的公司。”
英文原文：
DS Smith sets a single-cloud agenda for sustainability
The British packaging manufacturer has launched an AWS-centric digital transformation aimed at better leveraging data for more productive business outcomes — including reduced impact on the environment.
British multinational packaging giant DS Smith has committed itself to ambitious sustainability goals, and its IT strategy to standardize on a single cloud will be a key enabler.
The London-based industrial manufacturer, which currently runs multiple cloud platforms due to early experimentation and several acquisitions, has opted to consolidate its cloud and data operations onto Amazon Web Services as part of a five-year strategic partnership that coincides with the company’s timeline for replacing plastic materials as much as possible, streamlining its carbon footprint, and vastly reducing the use of water in its manufacturing process — all of which will be fueled significantly by technology and data. 数字化转型网www.szhzxw.cn
“Historically, we’ve been more multicloud or hybrid cloud, with private services as well,” says Claire Dickson, DS Smith’s CIO. “Much of our digital agenda is around data. Before we were quite fragmented across different technologies. Going into full partnership with AWS is much more of a strategic direction for us because using one stack is the most effective way to do that.”
The 30,000-employee company manufactures fiber-based and recycled paper packaging for large clients, including Amazon, Unilever, and Nestle, at more than 300 manufacturing sites globally, primarily in Europe, though the company has a facility in Atlanta as well.
Its digital transformation began with an application modernization phase, in which Dickson and her IT teams determined which applications should be hosted in the public cloud and which should remain on a private cloud. The migration, still in its early stages, is being designed to benefit from the learned efficiencies, proven sustainability strategies, and advances in data and analytics on the AWS platform over the past decade. 数字化转型网www.szhzxw.cn
Prague-based IDC analyst Jan Burian believes that DS Smith’s consolidation on AWS will increase the company’s ability to achieve its sustainability goals with greater efficiency.
“From a sustainability perspective, utilizing a cloud platform unlocks the company’s data and its value chain’s data end-to-end,” Burian says. “This enables the company to extract additional value from the data through real-time availability and contextualization. In consequence, there is a direct impact on lower energy costs, a reduction in the carbon footprint, decreased production waste costs, and increased utilization of equipment and workforce through data-driven planning and operations management.”
1. Laying the data foundation
The four pillars of DS Smith’s digital plan revolved around the management and optimization of data generated by industrial machines, energy providers, its supply chain, and customer experience. The single-cloud platform strategy will include SaaS partners used for automation of more than 40 enterprise applications, Dickson says. Additional applications will be migrated in lift-and-shift fashion while other legacy applications will be rebuilt from scratch. In total, the company’s operations rely on 700 applications.
As an older company with a spate of recent acquisitions, some of the work performed in its hundreds of factories remains manual labor while others are fully automated warehouses with robotics lifting palettes. Enabling consistency in the data sets from these varied sites is integral to DS Smith’s analytics strategy, as well as for anticipated changes in the company’s technology and business models, Dickson says.
“We’re piping data from all these applications into the same environment,” Dickson says of the strategy, noting that data coming from industrial machines, energy providers, business systems, and customers will reside in the same AWS data lakes, which will facilitate deploying AWS data analytics tools — among the first priorities of the company’s digital agenda. 数字化转型网www.szhzxw.cn
“We collect lots of sensor data on machine performance, vibration data, temperature data, chemical data, and we like to have performative combinations of those datasets,” Dickson says. “Having that data in the cloud and piping it into our data pipelines is a much more effective way to do that.”
Energy optimization is another key aspect of DS Smith’s data and sustainability pipeline, the CIO says.
“We’ve put energy metering in our machines so we can optimize energy consumption and that’s a big, big play for us. We’re looking to use AWS for ESG reporting, which is slightly different depending on the part of the world in which you are operating,” she says. “The data capability in AWS is a key reason for our partnership.”
Aside from being an Amazon supplier, DS Smith’s decision to bet primarily on the cloud provider is typical of many enterprises, and makes sense for a variety of reasons, says IDC’s Burian, including creating a silo-less data environment, offering transparency over data and operational processes, and the ability to harness AWS’s expansive technologies such as IoT, machine learning, data lakes, and analytics services.
“AWS is not just a leader in the cloud-based infrastructure, but it provides a comprehensive set of technology for AI and analytics,” Burian says.
Dickson says that DS Smith also plans to use virtual private clouds for some corporate data, giving it flexibility and control. 数字化转型网www.szhzxw.cn
Overall, Dickson’s IT agenda for DS Smith mirrors that of most EMEA CIOs, who rank data analytics (30%), application modernization (30%), and cloud (30%) as three of the top five technology initiatives that are driving the most IT investment this year, according to Foundry’s State of the CIO survey.
As for No. 2, machine learning/AI (31%), the packaging company has three use cases in proof of concept. Dickson also has a generative AI agenda under way and is confident that once the company has its data stored universally, and has developed machine learning models, it can then move on to building large language models (LLMs) on AWS that will yield even more productive business outcomes.
Here, Dickson sees data generated from its industrial machines being very productive. “We’re planning to have that fully hosted with us. We’re not giving that data to anybody else, and we’ll be training the generative AI models with our own data sets,” she says.
2. Purpose-driven IT
Chief among those more productive business outcomes will be achieving DS Smith’s sustainability goals, Dickson says.
To that end, the company is taking aggressive steps to replace “problem plastics” used in packaging and has developed a 14-day circular process of modeling, designing, manufacturing, and shipping boxes to customers, she says, adding that, as part of its “circular economy” objectives, DS Smith is using video imaging technology to identify plastics in recycled bales and aims to have all its packaging recycled or reused by 2030.
By 2030, the company also aims to send zero waste to the landfill, to decarbonize its operations and value chain, and to limit its global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees in accordance with the Paris Agreement. It also expects to reduce its reliance on natural gas by 25%, which will represent 50,000 tons of CO2 savings annually.
In fact, DS Smith’s commitment to ESG is a key reason the CIO took the job.
“We’ve really got sustainability at the core of what we do,” Dickson says, adding the company announced this fall the launch of its R8 R&D center for developing sustainable packaging. “We’re a very purpose-based company.” 数字化转型网www.szhzxw.cn
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