The vast amount of data generated by modern manufacturing operations is a blessing and a curse. There is so much value in the data, but the investment of time and money needed to harness the data can seem daunting to operations of all sizes.
In most cases, an investment is made in business intelligence (BI) programs because the focus is on identifying business opportunities. Whether you are looking to reduce costs or increase revenue, your business data is the key to unlocking real, lasting impact to your bottom line.
Start with a Digital Assessment
Understanding how far along your digitization efforts have gone is the best place to start with your BI efforts. Knowing what portions of your operation are digitized and what data is being captured creates a data inventory that can power a BI program. If you don’t know what data you have, you don’t know what questions you can answer with it.
Start Asking Questions
You could begin with the basics, like “what is our customer retention rate?” or “who are our most profitable customer?” but if you have done a full digital assessment you should be able to do more than analyze what has happened in the past. In fact, the purpose of your BI program should be to allow you to look into the future to identify threats and opportunities and respond accordingly.
For example, take the retention rate question. Instead of monitoring only one global number, your data should enable you to track order trends by customer and be alerted when there is a customer who is ordering more or less than usual and warrants a closer look for underlying causes.
Stop Looking Back
That is the power of BI. Instead of jumping into analysis (reaction) mode only after a retention metric changes months after a number of customers have faded off enough to be considered “lost,” with BI, your company already identified “at risk” customers and made contact to identify any issues that could be affecting the relationship. Ultimately, the goal is to leverage your data to predict outcomes accurately and take out guesswork in managing your business.
The key to developing a strong business intelligence practice is to take it one step at a time. A great way to start is with a Manufacturing Digital Assessment by Triple Helix. Triple Helix has worked with manufacturers of all sizes over the past 15 years and has developed a process to help assess opportunities in Information Management, Data Visibility, Data-Driven Processes, and Information Security. Contact us if you would like to schedule a risk-free consultation to see if Triple Helix can help your company better organize, access, and analyze your data.
