Deby Joevita, an award-winning User Experience Designer, mentioned during an online course that a UX design should have some metrics built in, which should provide you with the necessary direction towards achieving a meaningful experience for users.
Suddenly my attention was on full alert and my interest piqued. If metrics can be built into a UX design, then surely the ability to do the same can be implemented into your ERP system – the system that we engage with daily.
Think about metrics like the ability to measure downtime, measure strategic benefits and even measure business performance.
Of course, a top-of-mind consideration for many is that metrics are only as good as the accuracy of your data. How can you possibly measure downtime, without knowing your Overall Equipment Effectiveness across the factory floor or how can you measure business performance without understanding customer orders and demands?
I started thinking about the basics of data collection for manufactures and distributors and what needs to be in place for business to achieve true ROI.
Taking data back to the basics
Let’s be honest – data is everywhere these days and growing at an astounding rate. In fact, Statista estimates that 97 zettabytes of data will be created in 2022 alone. To put that into perspective, one zettabyte is equal to a thousand exabytes, a billion terabytes, or a trillion gigabytes!
For manufacturers, a colossal amount of data is being harvested through networks of IoT devices and even through manual systems and spreadsheets. That data can be static, like the number of kilograms in a ton, or fluctuating, like stock-on-hand of a product you make or sell. The problem with fragmented data is that it is largely untapped because it is not being fully analyzed to achieve desired business metrics.
So many businesses find themselves down the hole ala Alice in Wonderland, without getting a definite answer of what is happening across their value chain. The key is to not only capture data but understand it and translate seemingly unconnected facts and records into insights or “paintings” that tell a thousand words.
Manufacturers need to become data-driven and this can be done with Business Intelligence.
Defining Business Intelligence (BI)
Google defines Business Intelligence as the combination of business analytics, data mining, data visualization, data tools and infrastructure, and best practices to help organizations to make more data-driven decisions. I think it would be safe to say (or to generalize) that BI gives manufacturers the ability to optimize their product offering.
It’s also worth it to understand that ERP collects the enterprise data while Business Intelligence analyzes the enterprise data and uses dashboards and other interfaces to present that data in ways that make it easily understood and helps identify actionable opportunities.
The real benefits of Business Intelligence (BI)
With actionable insights in hand:
- Manufacturers can develop better business processes and improve efficiencies
- End-to-end supply chain visibility with the ability to continually monitor operations and provide real-time feedback on what drives performance and value as the environment changes
- Assess profit across the production line
- Understand changing customer demands and needs
- Monitor equipment effectiveness
While those benefits are tangible – yes, it’s true – many businesses still rely on manual processes and means of collecting research around business operations. Which raises the question of what manufacturers need to have in place to achieve real ROI.
The key is to have an ERP system that is underpinned by business intelligence (BI) and analytics programs in place that can enable manufacturers to analyze growing volumes of structured transaction information, plus other forms of data that are often left untapped. The best part is that the end customer experience can be immediately improved, as manufacturers start using less time in grappling with huge amounts of data and more time on the end customer experience.
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