Electricity and Control November 2025

Control systems + automation

As Africa’s manufacturing sector accelerates its journey into the era of Industry 4.0, the benefits are becoming increasingly clear – including reduced risk, leaner supply chains and lower operational costs, among others. Powering Africa’s manufacturing with future-ready infrastructure Wojtek Piorko, Managing Director, Africa at Vertiv

Wojtek Piorko, Vertiv, Africa.

Digital transformation in manufacturing requires the infrastructure to support digital technologies and the insights and eŽiciencies they enable.

M anufacturers across the continent are beginning to em brace digitalisation, automation and data intelligence. With the right critical digital infrastructure, they can thrive in an increasingly dynamic market. This is something Vertiv is seeing firsthand. Across every sector, organisations face grow ing pressure to modernise and optimise operations to stay com petitive. The same applies in manufacturing. Globally, the sector is advancing its digital maturity. Global professional services and advisory organisation, KPMG, notes in the KPMG global tech report 2024 – industrial manufacturing insights [1] , that 76% of manufacturers are ready to adopt new technologies, the highest proportion of respondent companies across eight di¤erent sectors surveyed by the organisation – including financial services, technology, retail, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and others. Evolving manufacturing systems To make the most of this shi§, manufacturers need to evolve their data centre infrastructure to support more data-intensive workloads. This is especially true with the explosion of data from sensors, machines and supply chains, which amplifies the requirement for scalable, secure storage and real-time data processing. Looking at the role of industrial AI in manufacturing [2] , the

Manufacturing Leadership Council – an international business leadership network – notes that digital transformation is changing manufacturing. In its ‘Smart Factories and Digital Production’ survey, 60% of respondents stated that they see digital transformation as something that is redefining the industry. Some 75% of manufacturers see their companies as at ‘midlevel’ digital maturity, up significantly from 2024 and 2023, and 89% of those surveyed add that they expect smart factory and production technology investments to either increase or remain unchanged for 2025. However, despite this optimistic outlook, manufacturers continue to grapple with several roadblocks in their digitalisation journeys. Nearly half (49%) of those interviewed by the Manufacturing Leadership Council said that outdated legacy equipment was their biggest challenge, up from 39% in 2024. Workforce-related barriers were also cited as a growing issue, as was resistance to change. Aligning technology and production The convergence of OT and IT is reshaping the manufacturing floor. Infrastructure that supports technologies like machine learning, robotic process automation (RPA) and Internet of Things (IoT) sensors enables real-time insights, greater precision and more e¤icient production.

10 Electricity + Control NOVEMBER 2025