Business Intelligence, we all hear the words. We all want it. Some of the executives and manufacturing managers reading this even think that they are using it. Are they really? You are probably thinking  . . . Yes, I am. I frequently receive reports detailing maintenance activities in my facilities. These reports probably include spare part usage statistics of some sort, down time calculations and associated dollar loss figures, critical inventory level flags, along with 30 data fields you probably don’t use to run your business. These reports are most likely delivered and viewed in Microsoft Excel or other available spreadsheet programs. Before the business/process champion or the person(s) otherwise responsible to put this information to use receives the report it is most likely generated and formatted by an analyst of sorts. 

The problem? . . .  you are probably asking. The problem is that the reporting and analyzing process to attain the intelligence information all happens after the fact. The spare part has already failed, the maintenance person responsible has already been to spare storage and realized that the critical spare is not stocked, the purchasing rep has already issued a PO to a local supplier for a much higher dollar amount than warranted by the contract with the actual manufacturer and the business intelligence as you call it, happens only after all of this has occurred. This is NOT business intelligence; it is simply and only historical information.

In better fiscal times, these issues weren’t a problem any part of the organization wanted to tackle. We all had large staffs of highly trained and experienced MRO professionals, who knew their manufacturing facilities like their own home. Cars, boats, planes, bicycles, mp3 players and consumer goods of all types were all flying off the shelf at records numbers. Margins were high, and there may not have been enough pressure (bottom up/ or top down) to make a large capital investment in an enterprise class business (manufacturing) intelligence platform. Things have all changed; resources across the board have been slashed faster and wider than ever in the last 2 decades. Is your organization prepared for the coming era?

This may seem like random rambling . . . I have a point. 

We all have MRO information, master data, and historical statistics. All of which is only information, raw data until it is put to use in the right manner. The key to the usage of this information is foresight. The information needs to be gathered, analyzed, and most importantly disseminated in real time to the people who need it to make REAL TIME business decisions.

Over the next several years I see more and more pressure put on IT and business process leaders to put in place solutions that can aid in making real time decisions before the problems happen.

Are your manufacturing/business decisions made after the headaches or before?

CR

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 12:28 pm and is filed under Chris Roberts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.