USING 'MANUFACTURING ANALYTICS' AS A COMPETITIVE STRATEGY

摘要

"Business intelligence," "data analytics," and "big data" are hot buzz words in IT, but even in the slower moving world of manufacturing, businesses have been collecting data without much fanfare. Manufacturers collect data on customer requirements, compliancy requirements, standards requirements (e.g., ISO), internal metrics for more informed decision-making, or for the sake of just collecting data. However, often this data is difficult to access, kept by multiple sources and formats, and the reality is that decision-making and organizational tactical management is done with spreadsheets and whiteboards. How to really benefit from the collected data and convert it into "actionable information" is the work of analytics to enable better business strategy. With the right structure, analytics can improve operational efficiency and visibility for more effective decision-making. These metrics are the key to attracting and retaining customers. In addition, manufacturing analytics can be a powerful weapon and a competitive advantage for additional revenue streams. Enabling manufacturers to develop services around the information may be the key to improving partnerships and long-term business. Design organizations are looking for partners in manufacturing to not only build "on time," "on budget," and "at quality standards," but also to improve their designs and products. What if a manufacturer can provide information to enable their customers who are looking to improve their component selection process, ideally choosing parts with the lowest defect rates and counterfeit rating? What if a manufacturer could provide design-for-excellence (DFx) information about every revision of a product, how it compared to the previous revisions (not only the last revision) to ensure violations and waivers were monitored and ensure corrective actions were truly done, and old violations were not re-introduced in a future revision? How much would design customers value a dashboard with production status, roll throughput yield, and running defect correlation to design best practices for their products? What if a manufacturer could provide a "service" to monitor quality metrics per product or program, further strengthening collaboration with the design customers and allowing them key insight as to how designs can improve over time, which would also lead to improved customer service and customer retention? There may be opportunities to make additional services revenue by leveraging manufacturing analytics information as well. This paper defines a manufacturing analytics strategy blueprint and explores how a successfully designed and executed manufacturing analytics strategy may be leveraged to improve competitiveness and dramatically improve the ability to provide collaborative services to customers.