01 May 2014 Manufacturers Require More Data Than Ever to Improve Quality & Processes
According to ZDnet, leading automotive manufacturers, such as Ford and their suppliers, require more metrics than ever before to help transform their businesses and ensure that they remain internationally competitive. The increased availability of data has allowed these companies to improve manufacturing processes, quality control, and customer satisfaction.
Decreasing costs of computing create the opportunity to do more than ever before with your data. Companies such as Ford—and virtually every other manufacturer—have access to cost-effective data storage and processing power. Cheap storage allows companies, in effect, to house as much data as they require for as long as they require. Regardless of whether a given data set is needed now, it may prove valuable in the future.
Organizations can never have too much data
“I like to talk to people about the possibility that big data provides and I always tell them that I have yet to have a circumstance where somebody is giving me too much data. You can pull in all this information and then answer a variety of questions, because you don’t have to worry that something has been thrown out. You have everything.” – Michael Carvetta, Technical Leader of Predictive Analytics, Ford Research and Advanced Engineering
More and more of the decisions being made in manufacturing companies require access to large data sets. From quality to management to production planning, data is king. This data must first be acquired, which may seem like a daunting and expensive task if a manufacturer has not already been collecting and storing it in a database for future use. It’s not as hard as it may seem if data collection is automated and stored efficiently. It quickly pays for itself too. For those that started collecting data, many fail to focus on the heart of their process – their production lines and the data straight from the machines themselves. Instead, they rely on test stands and manually collected data capturing small sample sets with an error-prone, labor-intensive process. Even those that claim to collect some data such as Ford, are beginning to identify and focus on the highest-value, strongest-ROI areas of data capture. Data such as temperatures, pressures, cycle times, defects, recipes, scrap reasons, and other critical machine-specific statistics tied directly to the traceability of every part is the only automated way to pull together the info manufacturers need to make continuous improvements. Eventually, there will be a move toward capturing as much data as possible in every production process.
Improve your manufacturing processes using manufacturing data
Acquiring data is useful for quality improvement processes across the value chain, such as with Six Sigma, lean manufacturing, and Deming’s methods. If a manufacturer is already collecting data from a wide variety of processes and storing it long-term, then the information is already available in the database. If a large pool of data isn’t readily available, it becomes much harder to see both short- and long-term patterns in production, quality metrics, and wastage. Simply stated, the more data to which an organization has access, the more effectively it is able to improve. Without the evidence, however, it is almost impossible to prove the validity of intuitions and anecdotes as representations of what is actually happening on the production-line floor.
Access your manufacturing data with Savance Datamiser
Is your organization generating data from its manufacturing process? Do you even know where to begin? Savance can help you figure it all out so you can start to acquire the right data directly from any machine on the production line in real time. They’ll help you store it effectively and efficiently so you can put that data to good use – to solve real problems and improve your quality. From quality improvement to compliance with government regulations, the goal is the same, produce a better product more efficiently at an overall lower cost to positively affect your organization’s bottom line.
Contact our team of experts now to discuss your needs and find out how you can start collecting data now. Understand your production process, improve your quality, reduce production times, and minimize scrap with the manufacturing data and quality metrics that you acquire using Savance Datamiser.