What happens after we finish a Studio project? It’s time to talk about the Digital Factory Model.
What is the Digital Factory?
There are several amazing articles on this blog explaining in detail how the Digital Studio works and what the benefits of this approach are. But our methodology doesn’t end there. The Digital Studio has a well-organised counterpart that picks up from where the Studio left off and makes the solution even better. That’s right, it’s the Digital Factory!
The Digital Factory is where the Minimum Viable Products created by the Digital Studio, are brought to maturity. The Digital Factory’s approach is built on two pillars: continuous improvement (SCALE) and structured system maintenance (RUN). By focusing on these two pillars, the Digital Factory ensures that the digital products and services released by the Digital Studio are always improving and running smoothly.
When it comes to the Digital Factory, we don’t just weigh our options, we SCALE them!
Scaling digital products involves adding incremental innovation to ensure sustainability and continuous improvement of the user experience. The Digital Factory achieves this by identifying new functionalities that can be added to the products. This to make the products more useful or user-friendly, and especially future proof. For this, the Digital Factory uses some of the same principles of the Digital Studio. End-user research and feedback analysis, feature prioritisation, and most importantly: scaling innovation in an organized and structured way. For example, adding a new chat functionality in a mobile application.
SCALE topics require more steps and quality gates compared to RUN topics. From a request being made until they’re deployed. It’s important that we analyse new feature requests thoroughly, to avoid unnecessary features or conflicting features with the current solution. New features means new developments and therefore a new version of the application is needed.
Testing is the core of our work and is considered a mutual effort that involves all Factory members, including the client. We will perform various tests to verify that the new solution works as expected and does not affect the existing solution negatively.
RUNNING TOWARDS THE SAME GOAL
Running digital products ensures that the products are functioning as expected and that any issues are resolved quickly.
Check out one of our articles on DevOps
The Digital Factory achieves this by closely monitoring the products, identifying, and correcting bugs. In addition, the team troubleshoots issues according to a predetermined service level agreement (SLA). For example, a software product developed by Digital Studio might be designed for a specific segment of customers who represent 80% of the population. The product might work well for this segment, but when it is scaled up by Digital Factory to reach a larger and more diverse audience, it might experience slow load times due to increased demand and complexity. The Digital Factory team optimizes the product’s performance for everyone.
These RUN topics are usually handled regularly and can be identified by any team member at any given time: either by a developer during the development phase, by a tester while performing tests across the system, or by an end-user while using the system.
Why the Digital Factory?
The key benefit of the Digital Factory approach is that it allows companies to rapidly iterate and improve their products. This is essential in a digital landscape where user preferences and market trends can change quickly. By having a dedicated team focused on continuous improvement, companies can respond to changes in the market and stay ahead of the competition.
Not only can market trends change, but technology can as well. With the Digital Factory’s model of continuous improvement, solutions will stay ahead of the curve by utilising the latest technology and ensuring that any system developed and maintained by the Digital Factory is up to date with the latest technological trends. This approach helps to provide users with the best possible experience and performance in the market.
Key Take aways
The Digital Factory is an essential component of any company’s digital strategy. The model ensures that digital products and services are always improving and running smoothly. In particular by focusing on continuous improvement and structured system maintenance. Whether you’re a startup or an established company, the Digital Factory approach can help you stay ahead of the competition. To deliver products and services that meet the needs of your users.
And remember, if you want to learn more about how to set up a Digital Factory or how we can help your business thrive in the digital age, don’t hesitate to contact us. We would love to hear from you and help you on your digital transformation journey.
For more information on our Digital Delivery Model, you can start by checking this great article: https://digitaldelight.be/digital-transformation-digital-delivery-model/
