The two parties will co-innovate to expedite and expand P&G’s digital manufacturing platform and will utilise IIoT to accelerate the launch of products, enhance customer satisfaction, and increase productivity to cut down costs

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P&G selects Microsoft as its preferred cloud provider to build the future of digital manufacturing. (Credit: P&G)

Procter & Gamble (P&G) has entered into a multi-year collaboration with Microsoft with an aim to build the future of digital manufacturing by leveraging the Microsoft Cloud.

The two parties will jointly innovate to expedite and expand the digital manufacturing platform of P&G. They will make use of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to accelerate the launch of products, improve customer satisfaction, and boost productivity to cut down costs.

P&G has selected Microsoft as its preferred cloud provider for this task based on a four-year partnership under which they worked together on data and artificial intelligence (AI).

P&G CIO Vittorio Cretella said: “Together with Microsoft, P&G intends to make manufacturing smarter by enabling scalable predictive quality, predictive maintenance, controlled release, touchless operations and manufacturing sustainability optimisation — which has not been done at this scale in the manufacturing space to date.

“At P&G, data and technology are at the heart of our business strategy and are helping create superior consumer experiences. This first-of-its-kind co-innovation agreement will digitise and integrate data to increase quality, efficiency and sustainable use of resources to help deliver those superior experiences.”

By using Microsoft Azure as the foundation, P&G will digitise and integrate data from over 100 manufacturing sites in different parts of the world.

Through the partnership, the US-based consumer goods company will aim to improve its AI, machine learning as well as edge computing services to get real-time visibility.

The collaboration with Microsoft will enable P&G’s employees in analysing production data and utilise AI to immediately make decisions that result in improvement and exponential impact.

Overall, the collaborative effort is expected to help the consumers goods company to make better use of data, digital twins technology, and AI capabilities.

It will enable P&G to streamline its manufacturing environmental sustainability efforts as well as boost workforce efficiency and productivity.

Microsoft chief commercial officer Judson Althoff said: “We are excited to help P&G accelerate its digital manufacturing platform using Microsoft Azure, AI and IIoT to accommodate volatility in the consumer products industry with innovative, agile solutions that can easily scale based on market conditions.

“Our partnership will further P&G’s growth and business transformation through digital technology that seamlessly connects people, assets, workflow and business processes that promote resiliency.”