Situation
Let me start by saying I’m near-sighted and spend a lot on getting the right glasses so I can see properly. It got me thinking about business. Having visibility into your manufacturing processes is like reading the wall chart in the optometrist’s office. The big E at the top of the chart – that’s your raw materials. Nearly anyone can make out the “big E” facilities without even squinting. But those fuzzy little letters and numbers on the seemingly faraway bottom row – the O that might be a G, the 8 that might be a 3 – those are your processing areas, quality measures, and management practices. To bring them into focus, you’ll need high-powered lenses. You’ll need, in fact, all that manufacturing data, system information and those management decisions communicating and alerting people across areas or site, potentially even the global enterprise.
Proactive not reactive
The key to aggregating information from multiple specialized systems and devices and manual sources is a reliable and robust platform. Because a platform that enables data formats from different applications to be accessed, transformed and delivered to staff as needed offers constant visibility into manufacturing processes across the business. This platform provides access to more device / system based data and includes manually collected data, than is typically available in any of your excel spreadsheets that are in such wide use in what seems like every company.
Common technology can be used to integrate data generated by the various department-specific applications within a company. The table stakes for any business operations technology platform is that you have to collect data from the source; that means connecting to PLCs and process historians, maintenance systems and ERP systems.
Innovative platforms, however, do more. Innovative platforms collect all of that operating system and PLC device data, and, in addition, include manual data from visual inspections, quality checks, and normal operating rounds. Next this ideal platform monitors a schedule of who is collecting what data to ensure that even the manual data is collected on time and is used in measuring real performance. Then your platform brings the most valuable performance metrics to your attention and shows you where you need to take action.
If you have done all of this right, you are collecting the data and information that are early indicators or lead indicators of what will be when the production day is done. Your platform helps you predict where you need to take action early enough so that you avoid those big process upsets and mistakes that cost your business big money.
The pressure to respond quickly to operating performance alerts is heightened by customers and business managers expecting increasingly faster responses to any sort of event. They don’t want to incur the expense of shutting down a production line for maintenance, or recalling a product due to inferior quality, or retaining inventory beyond their immediate needs. And, they want to respond to the demands of today, not yesterday, and certainly not of last month or last year.
That’s why the time between the appearance of a performance trend and the completion of actions that answer the trend is becoming more and more compressed. Plus, the actions that you intend to take are often not the actions actually taken simply because there is no follow up, no tracking of the actions and certainly no connection between the performance lapse and the response that is required.
Usable BI
Data is just data until you have a purpose behind collecting and consuming it. The idea of gathering information from the point of view of predictive measures changes everything related to how to manage your line of business. Predictive measures tell you in advance of something happening; they point you towards upset conditions and invite you to take corrective action before the real negative impact hits your operations.
By aggregating data with a purpose, you in fact transform your data into useful information. Information with utility reflects knowledge about your business and now you have the constructs in place to take meaningful actions aimed directly at improving the performance of your business.
Actions integrated with performance
So, now you have your knowledge base, your intelligent information. You can measure and anticipate your performance by watching your predictive indicators. Now what? By integrating the predictive performance measures with a system that captures and tracks your needed actions from start to finish, you can finally start to see how those actions actually impact your business operating performance.
All of this is delivered in an innovative platform that reflects the need of the performance focused business with the team focused on continuous and sustainable performance improvement. You enable your business and your operating staff in one seamless environment. The technology platform you choose will ensure flexibility, scalability, and the interoperability of systems.
Your employees need the ability to interoperate with disparate computer systems across the operating spectrum and the ability to leverage their legacy systems and access reports quickly, easily, and flexibly. They need the ability to adapt to production changes quickly and intelligently. They need to enable their core assets for maximum business value.
You want to make it easy for your employees to act – solve problems quickly and efficiently, and in the manner you want. The mandate needs to be easy to understand and transparent to them – to minimize disruption, to increase intuitive understanding, and to focus on the highest value activities. It is the job of the business line managers to set the employees up for success.
The ability to manage information better and deliver superior speed-to-performance is what inprove Inc. and our incite platform can provide to the manufacturing industry.
About Us
Vice President, inprove Inc.
At inprove Inc., we support and enhance our clients own CI efforts by formulating and delivering HONEST and ACTIONABLE information via our incite Platform so they can get BETTER results and build CONFIDENCE in their improvement efforts.
inciteTM is designed by continuous improvement professionals for continuous improvement professionals. The catalyst for us was years spent working with, and being frustrated by, organizations’ inaccessible, incomplete and inaccurate performance data. Now with extensive experience in delivering HONEST data and ACTIONABLE information to operations and CI managers, we have re-invented the CI model.
Our inciteTM platform gives our clients the ability to collect information from any and all systems and devices and bring it to a single platform that not only highlights the controllable elements of performance, but integrates accurate performance data with action planning. The inciteTM Platform delivers the full spectrum of automated, manual and behavioral measures needed to know what is going on, and gives you the operational line of sight you need to focus employees on actions and resolution. inciteTM reinforces your CI practices and allows you to ultimately to change behavior on a sustainable basis.
For further information, contact Greg via email or visit www.inproveinc.com.