Rolls-Royce has launched a new venture, called R2 Factory, a digital transformation members’ community that will help other organisations tackle their toughest industrial challenges.
Created out of R2 Data Labs – our in-house digital culture, data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) unit – R2 Factory's team of specialists is inviting member organisations to collaborate with them to build solutions for their digital transformation challenges. The approach combines advanced data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, with digital culture change, deep domain knowledge and system engineering expertise.
At the launch event on March 31st, Caroline Gorski, Chief Executive Officer, R2 Factory, said: “Five years into our own digital transformation journey at Rolls-Royce, we’ve learned some valuable lessons, including the need to look externally, collaborate and change culture as well as technology.
“Digital transformation is difficult and often unsuccessful, so we’ve created the R2 Factory as a safe space to do hard things, where we can share our Rolls-Royce successes and experiences with others.”
Aimed at global physical process-driven industrial businesses, which are asset-intensive and whose work is mission-critical, the R2 Factory team will work with its members through collaborative residency programmes. These will be focused on driving solutions in research and development, supply chain resilience, manufacturing, regulation and compliance, service and maintenance, AI and culture.
The successes achieved by R2 Data Labs in Rolls-Royce are not just about cost efficiency from digitalisation, but also increased digital literacy among the workforce and carbon footprint reduction. For instance, the team used data to reduce the carbon footprint in key supply chains by 40%.
Grazia Vittadini, Group Chief Technology and Strategy Officer, Rolls-Royce and also Chair of the R2 Factory Advisory Board, said: “Every organisation needs its creators, catalysts, campaigners, carers and convenors. Caroline and her team will be leveraging their Rolls-Royce experience of digital culture and technologies for the benefit of R2 Factory members, helping them find solutions to their own really tough digital challenges.”
With demonstrable results in culture change through the Rolls-Royce Digital Academy; societal change, through the team’s work with the non-for-profit Emergent Alliance; and supporting practical and ethical AI standards with The Aletheia FrameworkTM, R2 Factory will focus on helping members think differently about their digital challenges.
Caroline Gorski, added: “We know you can’t just add new technologies to an organisation. You have to think about practical deployment, about the people and about society. At its heart, successful digital transformation is a complete culture change and, in our experience, you can only achieve that when people collaborate.
“So, R2 Factory is a place where we can work with our members to build pragmatic solutions that make digital transformation actually happen. Only through collaboration will we change the way in which industry thinks about and tackles complex problems.”