Your Smart Manufacturing IT Clients Capitalize On Manufacturing Data

By Peter Guilfoyle, Vice President of Marketing, Northwest Analytics

A major challenge faced by manufacturers is the state of data useable to glean actionable intelligence. Manufacturing, compared to industries that are using more sophisticated data analytics tools — like advertising and finance — is often scrambling to find better ways to use data to improve quality and efficiency. 

It is true today, in an age of Big Data analytics, that manufacturers on the whole are lacking in “tools to collect, condition, and analyze the information. What can be done to overcome the suggestion that manufacturing suffers from “DRIP” syndrome; data rich, information poor?

Complex Technologies In Isolated Systems

Today’s manufacturing environments are made up of complex, purpose-focused technologies that gather vast amounts of data in often-isolated systems that are not easily integrated. The data collected and captured in these systems is often referred to as “data islands” or “data silos,” reflecting the fact that the complexity and specificity of individual processes result in data isolation. Data doesn’t become useful information until analytics are applied to surface the significant process signals from each data system and woven into an integrated fabric of manufacturing intelligence.

The stakes are high in manufacturing quality. The performance of key components is often a serious safety issue, as in the manufacture of automobile or aircraft parts. Critical tolerances must be monitored and tested to ensure quality and safety. Except in prototyping of newly developed products, there are no production “betas” that can be operated on the manufacturing floor. Product runs have to be right the first time. Production stoppages or product recalls can be enormously expensive, running into the millions or billions of dollars.

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