STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Data Driven Decision Making offers a lot of advantages to optimize manufacturing processes
- Data can easily be collected by manufacturing operators using a digital work instruction software
- Replacing paper instructions by electronic work instructions is a necessary step to start with DDDM
- Execution data can be combined with asset data to give insights in many areas of manufacturing performance and operational excellence
What is Data Driven Decision Making?
Decisions play a vital role across all levels of business, each requiring its own decision-making processes. Whether small or large, decisions are commonly made based on observational information or simply intuition. Data-driven decision-making (DDDM) offers a more robust approach by leveraging data and metrics to make well-informed judgments. By harnessing statistical data, this process identifies risks and seizes new emerging opportunities.
DDDM in manufacturing entails placing the data-driven approach at the core of manufacturing operations. This is how data-driven and assumption-driven approaches compare in manufacturing :
Source graphic: https://forbytes.com/blog/data-driven-decision-making/
Benefits of Data-driven Manufacturing
The benefits of effectively utilizing data is not limited to technology or large-scale, public enterprises. Any business can gain a number of competitive advantages when data is properly incorporated.
Transparency and increased visibility: One significant benefit of data driven manufacturing is that it enables leaders at both the shop floor and the corporate office to gain a deeper understanding of performance and operational excellence based on the data being collected across the organization. These data offer insight into individual asset performance as well as overall operations. As a result, decision-makers can better identify opportunities in areas such as poor performing shifs, recurring machine downtime, or other production bottlenecks.
AI and Machine Learning: With large data sets, manufacturers have the ability to leverage machine learning algorithms which can resolve complex problems such as preventive maintenance, repair planning etc.
Cost Savings: Data complements lean manufacturing by providing manufacturers with the necessary information to streamline production processes and minimize waste. Without the hard data, it’s difficult to accurately measure production improvements and be sure that changes have resulted in cost savings.
Process optimization and continuous process improvement: Data and key performance indicators (KPI’s) can offer valuable insight not only to top-level management but also to their colleagues working on the shop floor. It empowers frontline workers to streamline processes and achieve optimal levels of production at all times.
How do you collect relevant data from the shop floor?
How do you collect all these data, without burdening your operators with tedious administration? Data can be collected automatically either from a wide range of hardware sensors or by frontline workers, plant technicians or operators. Therefore, real-time data logging of every step of a work execution is paramount to Data-Driven Manufacturing.
To this end, a digital work instruction platform, such as Proceedix, offers a comprehensive solution. It not only facilitates the translation of paper-based workflows into digital work instructions and inspection flows but also automates the data collection process, capturing valuable information at every step of an inspection or workflow execution. This includes specific measuring points as part of the procedure, but also contextual data such as time spent on the job, exact location, operator name and the device used. The platform ensures a complete audit trail, even when tasks or measuring points are overwritten.
All this information is consolidated in the history and statistics modules of the Proceedix portal. The platform easily enables the generation of reports in several formats for compliance purpopes. These exports can be tailored and customized to match your current templates or suit new use cases, allowing for flexibility in data presentation. Moreover, Business Intelligence dashboards can use the aggregated data to detect trends, evolutions, critical points in the process, root cause analysis, etc.
In conclusion, the Proceedix digital work instruction platform, offers a comprehensive solution that automates data collection and facilitates the utilization of data for analysis and process improvement to drive DDDM.
Custom BI dashboards: a crucial building block of DDDM
As discussed in the previous paragraph, users can delve deeper into their manufacturing execution data by building personalized dashboards based on their specific business metrics and KPIs, using the data extracted from digital instructions and inspections. Proceedix offers the option of providing customers with an SQL database for more tailored and flexible data visualization and analysis. By integrating the capabilities of Proceedix with external Business Intelligence tools like PowerBI, Tableau, or Qlik Sense users can maximize the potential of their data and improve data-driven decision making.
In this example, Microsoft Power BI was used to create a dashboard from Proceedix data based on certain filters such as start & end timestamps, type of workflow, type of asset, and/or operator. This dashboard showcases a summary of “Oil Check” procedure executions over the last 3 months. It visualizes the “Average Task Duration” for a task within the procedure, allowing customers to gain at-a-glance insights into the efficiency of their operations. Using Microsoft Power BI, customers can visualize their execution data and track KPIs and business metrics in these dashboards which are customized to their specific requirements.
Proceedix offers a toolbox to generate data to guide decision-making. By analyzing execution data, organizations can make data-driven decisions that lead to increases productivity, quality and efficiency while consequently reducing environmental impact.
Proceedix is committed to shaping the digital future of manufacturing. Let Proceedix assist your organization in becoming data-driven and unlock the full potential of your data today.
