In the product development and manufacturing industry, customers must be able to understand what novel digital technologies can do for them.
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The idea of the customer experience has evolved over the past few decades and now encompasses much more than it used to. In the product development and manufacturing industry, customers must be able to understand what novel digital technologies can do for them. This often requires seeing those technologies in action. It’s important, then, for today’s technology solution providers to find innovative and immersive ways for current and future customers to interact with different technology offerings. This not only shows customers what’s available, but also allows them to ideate and help to create the solutions of the future.
Giving people hands-on experience in real-world environments helps them see how those solutions might work together to improve product development and manufacturing across the entire product lifecycle. They will also be better positioned to understand just what is possible and to educate senior executives and other stakeholders about the promise of digital transformation for their organization. Product demonstrations and marketing brochures simply cannot deliver these benefits.
Convened by Deloitte, The Smart Factory @ Wichita is an experience center located on Wichita State University’s Innovation campus and marries an ecosystem of world-leading, innovative collaborators with strategy and cutting-edge technology to show the power of smart manufacturing. Siemens is a Founder-level sponsor of The Factory, along with 20 solution providers of manufacturing and technology solutions, academic researchers and futurists. Clients that visit The Smart Factory @ Wichita will experience advanced manufacturing techniques in a variety of applications on a shop floor with a fully operational production line, new software solutions and a variety of experiential labs that demonstrate how manufacturers can leverage the latest technologies to enhance both current and future capabilities.

“As manufacturers continue to respond to the rapid shifts in demand, along with a volatile supply chain, labor shortages and a fluctuating global economy, many are reevaluating their current manufacturing processes and technologies,” said Brian Meeker, U.S. Product Engineering and Development leader and principal at Deloitte Consulting LLC. “When we built The Smart Factory @ Wichita, it was important to us to bring together best-in-class solution providers and the greatest minds in a robust, comprehensive ecosystem to help our clients rapidly solve for these challenges. With the power of the ecosystem housed at The Smart Factory, we can together demonstrate practical manufacturing applications and help our clients apply a combination of business strategy and end-to-end technology to engineer advantage for their organizations.”
Moving Between Physical and Virtual Worlds with Ease
Manufacturing executives understand that customers do not need to follow a single process evolution for their products. There can be value in adopting different processes for different offerings, provided that those processes solve critical challenges in a cost-effective manner. At The Smart Factory @ Wichita, customers can visit the Siemens eXplore Live space, which demonstrates how existing and emerging technologies interact with the physical environment and virtual data sets. Customers can also model products using various ecosystem partner tools. In doing so, they can design, simulate, test and verify requirements for products or manufacturing set-ups in the virtual realm before committing to a physical prototype or build-out.
“We always talk about the virtual and the real—and now we actually have facilities where we can show our customers how the virtual and the real comes together,” said Del Costy, Senior VP and Managing Director, Americas, at Siemens Digital Industries Software.

Deloitte leverages Siemens’ tools to help customers move from the digital to the physical via digital twin and digital thread capabilities. Deloitte used Siemens Xcelerator portfolio tools to design The Smart Factory @ Wichita and its operations before building out the actual physical facility. Customers can emulate this workflow by first creating a twin of their factories and products, and then going on to build the physical asset. They can also experience the power of the digital thread—digital tools and representations that support every step of product lifecycle management—to help them meet evolving market needs and preferences while saving valuable time and resources.
Beyond digital twin and digital thread capabilities, customers can leverage new technologies like internet of things (IoT) data collection to enhance their manufacturing processes. IoT and 3D digital tools can help executives realize an ideal model-based enterprise (MBE). When manufacturers use this vital engineering strategy, they can better clarify their design intent and identify the best assets and processes to design, manufacture and support a given product throughout its lifecycle.
A Place to Nurture STEM Education and Workforce Development
Deloitte and Siemens are deeply committed to developing the future of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) educational programs—and helping to mold students who will one day enter STEM fields. These professionals will help fuel future innovation and progress within the product development and manufacturing industry.
To that end, philanthropy is at the heart of The Smart Factory @ Wichita. In line with its commitment to helping shape the next generation of engineers and STEM workforce, The Smart Factory @ Wichita joined forces with several organizations to produce and build a STEM education product, the Smart Rover kit, on The Factory’s state-of-the-art production line. Through Deloitte’s Smart Factory Believers program powered by a Deloitte-led ecosystem, this 21st-century learning experience is distributed to middle schools in underserved communities across the U.S. to help children build skills needed to design, code and build for the future. The program aims to reach 800,000 students in the U.S. over four years to foster long-term systemic impact in STEM education.

In addition, The Smart Factory @ Wichita serves as an applied learning experience for Wichita State University students. Those that apply and are selected spend time in The Factory learning about manufacturing technology, operating technological solutions and helping visitors to The Factory solve for engineering and manufacturing challenges. In the process, they gain new skills and invaluable work experience. The Smart Factory @ Wichita gives these students a direct, hands-on opportunity to learn about STEM careers and the creative, well-paying and varied paths they might pursue once they graduate from university or graduate school.
Visiting companies also have the opportunity to identify and mentor the talented students they encounter at The Smart Factory @ Wichita. They can guide them as interns and, later, bring them on in full-time roles knowing they are well versed in the modern technologies that can help them solve the most pressing customer challenges of today—and tomorrow.
In addition, start-up companies can also benefit from The Smart Factory @ Wichita ecosystem. These nascent companies can use the tools and solutions within the facility to help them as they incubate new ideas that will one day evolve into tomorrow’s solutions. They can form crucial partnerships with the center’s stakeholder organizations to help them as they create new solutions and bring them to market. The Smart Factory @ Wichita is an innovation hub that supports a fresh evolution cycle—so patrons always have access to the latest and greatest technologies.
Sustainability in Action
Sustainability has become increasingly important to the product development and manufacturing industry. When organizations adopt more sustainable practices, they can increase operational efficiency, reduce costs and gain competitive advantages in the marketplace. Today’s consumers also have changed their expectations of companies they purchase from: many prefer to buy from organizations that are committing to and actively demonstrating sustainable practices. The Smart Factory @ Wichita incorporates sustainability into every aspect of the facility and products manufactured on the line.
The Factory is a net-zero building that is powered by a renewable energy smart grid and is outfitted with solar panels on the roof and in carports. Wind trees add an artistic flair to the campus while collecting energy for the facility’s grid. In addition, Siemens has enabled a variety of smart lighting and sustainability control systems across the facility.
Finally, the Smart Rover STEM circuit kit’s housing that is manufactured on The Smart Factory @ Wichita’s production line is made with 100 percent recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) collected from the local Wichita recycling stream as the primary raw material, bringing the circular economy to life.
“Sustainability isn’t one company’s problem to solve—and it’s not one partner’s to solve,” said Costy. “It takes an ecosystem working together.”
The Smart Factory @ Wichita is supporting exactly that kind of ecosystem. The idea is to inspire customers through the different sustainability efforts across the campus. By demonstrating these varied and creative approaches, customers can gather existing ideas—or perhaps develop new ones—on how to improve the sustainability of their own products and manufacturing facilities.
Conclusion
When customers can engage with an experience center like The Smart Factory @ Wichita, they can immerse themselves in a new, enhanced customer experience that shows them how much more they can achieve with new and emerging technologies.
The alliance between Deloitte and Siemens brings together engineers, designers, students and other ecosystem partners to both envision and enact the great ideas of the future. Working side by side, these partners can use intuitive technologies to tackle ongoing challenges within the product development and manufacturing industry and execute solutions to those issues more quickly and effectively.
The Smart Factory @ Wichita is more than just an active shop floor. It boasts full digitization technology, including digital twin, digital thread and artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) tools. It also allows participating students and organizations to work with blockchain, cloud, cybersecurity and other cutting-edge manufacturing tools. All of these capabilities are modeled within the factory premises, with the backing of supporting companies. Together, they facilitate the continued evolution of the modern product development and manufacturing lifecycle.
“We know these transformation journeys aren’t easy,” said Costy. “It takes a lot of work, commitment and alignment of ecosystem partners. Together we can support our customers engaged in Industry 4.0 to accelerate digital transformation and solve complex manufacturing challenges.”
Want to hear more? In this video, you’ll hear from Brian Meeker, U.S. Product Engineering and Development leader and principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP, and Del Costy, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Americas, for Siemens Digital Industries Software, on Deloitte and Siemens: Accelerating the Future of Smart Manufacturing.