Manufacturing Insights | TwinThread

Continuous Improvement: The New Playing Field

Written by Erik Udstuen | Dec 5, 2021 6:14:00 PM

Driving continuous improvement, boosting overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), and improving quality have been a part of industrial operations since the first production line was created. Over the years, these activities have shifted from largely manual to highly automated, but the advantage has always tilted in the favor of large, well-funded organizations. Today, however, advanced analysis and operational enhancement strategies are available to all. 

Given the ubiquity of fast networks, smart devices, and virtually limitless storage, there’s likely no shortage of production data circulating through your organization. In fact, there’s so much to deal with that it can feel (at times) like you’re immobilized by it all. Where to start?

What your in-the-field experts need is a shortcut to the insights that are just waiting to be found within your clustered data. The scenic route may get you to where you’re going, but certainly not quick enough when it comes to establishing and sustaining a competitive advantage.

But let’s take a step back for a second. Sure, having a large collection of data can be overwhelming and can result in informational overload. However, it’s also the critical resource you need to gather insights. So, if you have a solution that can meaningfully curate the data for you, it’s actually a lot better to have more, than less. A predictive solution that prioritizes speed to insight will support your experts’ innovation by offering the key pieces of information fast (unencumbered by the rest of the data noise).

Allowing your domain experts to cut through the ocean of information that your organization has is just another example of how a worthy predictive platform proves its value in an abbreviated timeframe. The heavy lifting is already done - your organization collected all of the data.

Now, it’s time to exploit information and convert the key insights into operational action. Not in a year’s time, not in a couple of months - now. Your insights are waiting to be found - use a predictive solution that doesn’t make your domain experts wait any longer.

Having a robust set of data upon which to build your analysis is critical, but it’s far from the only consideration when assessing and selecting a predictive analytics platform. For more insight and guidance, check out our “Optimization for All” whitepaper.