From improving shop floor control to increasing end-to-end visibility, manufacturers across the globe leverage data to enhance their organization’s performance on the plant floor. This data comes from a variety of sources – machines, systems and people. But as the volume of data continues to grow, how can manufacturers sift through it to get the metrics they need without wasting time and resources?
Here are four steps manufacturers can take to ensure they’re getting value from big data:
- Establish a baseline through current metrics: Whether you want to improve your organization’s shipping practices or streamline your inventory management process, measuring existing manufacturing systems and the performance of your processes allows you to establish a baseline for your analytics and helps you gauge plant floor improvements from any point in time.
- Map and Compare: Value stream mapping and other lean practices enable manufacturers to rework customer-facing manufacturing processes to save time and money. An example of a reworked process includes moving master production scheduling to same-day closed-loop scheduling.
- Define Performance: For each of your critical customer-focused processes, define metrics of performance and include them in a dashboard. Metrics on product quality, on-time delivery and order performance connect plant floor productivity and performance to financial results that are showcased in a dashboard to help you define your plant floor’s performance.
- Evaluate Analytics and Performance: As a manufacturing technology leader, you can use analytics to measure your company’s performance and make strategic business decisions that affect the success of your organization. Using analytics to create performance benchmarks improves your plant floor to top floor operations, as well as the customer experience.
Don’t get overwhelmed by big data. Through the creation of metrics, data comparisons, evaluation of analytics and definition of performance, manufacturers can streamline their plant floor operations, deriving key operational value from big data.
Want to learn more? Access the “What Does Big Data Mean for Manufacturers?” white paper.
