Global Lighthouse Network 2025

Assetizing for scale 2.3 Assetization is a systematized approach to developing, managing and deploying reusable assets for scalable digital transformations across an organization.38 Those piloting new use cases without playbooks had to learn by trial and error. But today, many applications have matured. Nearly every new Lighthouse in 2024 has a solution for production scheduling, predictive maintenance or facilities management in their top five solutions presented in site evaluations. The breakthrough from Lighthouses is the speed and scale of deployment for these solutions; the innovation is “assetization” – a practice long utilized by the software industry. Assetization in production settings consists of composable and universally accessible standard manuals, procedures and tools that enable frontline workers to harness the power of digital solutions without specialized knowledge. Deploying composable assets Composability is a design principle that emphasizes the ability to assemble and reassemble components, allowing for more agile systems. By focusing on composability, Lighthouses develop flexible and scalable infrastructure that adapts to changing business needs, enabling faster innovation, reduced time to market and incremental improvements rather than large, disruptive rollouts. Nearly every new Lighthouse in 2024 has a solution for production scheduling, predictive maintenance or facilities management in their top five solutions presented in site evaluations. Siemens established their own way of composability, driven by the urge to use the software distributed by their software branch in their own factories. Complementary applications are also developed mostly on this basis. Business case optimization demands that those applications are developed in co-creation with software providers and marketed for external customers too. This leads to increased re-useable technology assets that enable local innovation.39 Lighthouses see every operation as unique, requiring assets and tools that offer both the flexibility needed to adjust in local contexts and the sturdiness to scale-up with the same underlying foundations over time40 – a fine line to tread. They do this by designing assets with composable elements, such as cloud- based and containerized microservices, application programming interfaces (APIs) and data models capable of communicating across diverse systems and processes (see Figure 12). Lighthouses balance standardization and flexibility in their composable assets FIGURE 12 Flexibility Structu re an d s tan dar dsStructure projects as small, self-contained units that can be developed, tested and deployed independently, allowing for quicker iterations – Deploy modular APIs to quickly adapt and serve new channels – Decouple architecture for independent testing and deployment – Use microservices – smaller and self-contained applications, each serving a specific capability Design systems with interchangeable components that can be easily reconfigured or replaced, enhancing the reuse of existing modules – Adopt a “best of breed” approach for modular architectures that can span a variety of applications, suites and clouds – Ensure easy integration and process changes, allowing for rapid adoption and scaleBuild cloud-native infrastructure and reliable data management to enable ongoing in-house development and innovation – Leverage cloud-native infrastructure, infrastructure as code and automation for flexible architecture – Establish a reliable data management strategy – Support independent development for ongoing in-house capability building Lead development orchestration and best practice sharing for centralized control and oversight, ensuring rapid response to emerging needs – Utilize deployment approaches such as agile and DevOps – Provide guidance on leading practices for API integration for cohesive data pipelines – Use journey services to orchestrate between different domain servicesBreak down into small packages Continuously build in system autonomy Centralize and standardize development Design systems for modularity Sources: Gartner,41 Global Lighthouse Network.EXAMPLE Siemens Global Lighthouse Network: The Mindset Shifts Driving Impact and Scale in Digital Transformation 20