From Excel to Excelling: Bringing Real-Time Data and Reporting Back Together

Intro:

Every organization has nightmares managing from Excel. Issues range from outdated spreadsheets, overlapping versions, and substantial visibility gaps with reporting. As the manufacturing industry continues to embrace digital transition, many businesses are realizing their data management processes are creating more problems than they solve. To move forward, companies need to change their perspective on data. Here are the top areas of data visibility you need to streamline growth in the new age.

Topic 1: Single Source of Truth

Having duplicate Excel documents maximizes errors, mistakes, and poor decision-making. Many businesses of your size and scale are using Quickbooks, Salesforce, Hubspot all at once, without being connected. If every department keeps their own records, redundancy and mistakes are bound to happen. By unifying every business function within a single source of data, everyone will have the accessibility they need to perform their jobs proficiently.

Manufacturing management software creates a single source of truth for companies. It makes sure every aspect of the business is given visibility, accessibility, and empowerment to make the right decisions, at the right time.

On the floor, line workers can track performance to reach daily production quotas. Plant managers can aggregate the floor’s production to make quick decisions, boosting machine utilization and maximizing labor. And stakeholders have a bird’s eye view of their business to align strategic initiatives.

Topic 2: Proactive Decision Making with Real-Time Data

The reality of the situation is that for many areas of manufacturing, especially the production floor and inventory, old data is bad data. Even hours-old data pulled from purchasing can lead to inefficient spending on materials for multiple orders, or yesterday’s machine utilization data could tell a much different story than today’s performance. Making decisions based on old data could potentially leave the company with reduced profit margins, therefore, having access to real-time data is vital to making sure the business is as efficient, profitable, and streamlined as possible.

With software that integrates directly into the business, mirroring your processes, this problem is an easy fix. Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) software provides real-time supply chain data that can have your purchasing team cutting costs in minutes. With BAM, the team can find the perfect supplier that matches the best lead time, lot size, and quality the jobs call for, even helping by automating advanced inventory management to order for multiple jobs and future-plan based on historical data.

The solution doesn’t just stop at inventory. With machine intelligence from your management software, you can capitalize on capacity utilization increases by tracking machine downtime, defects, cycle times, and equipment efficiency right on the floor as it is happening. “Empowering machine operators to connect using simple interfaces helps prevent errors from occurring and avert defects throughout the production process. Automated systems analyze data in real-time and trigger actions that help reduce downtime, prevent the chances of failure, and improve output delivery.” Check out how Complexus Medical, an ECI customer, was able to increase their equipment utilization by 15-20%.

Manufacturers can realize many of these gains and more across their business by being able to utilize real-time data to make informed proactive decisions making.

Topic 3: Data Visualization

Aggregating siloed data from multiple departments and databases takes a lot of time away from more important tasks. The creation of report visualization from this type of data management practice is reactive reporting, and it is hurting the business in many ways.

So, instead of spending hours pulling together this data or reviewing multiple spreadsheets to conduct strategic analysis, manufacturing management software captures it accurately, automatically and in clear and flexible formats. This data visualization at your fingertips can eliminate the need for guesswork, save time, and optimize decision making. No more having multiple production meetings every day to discuss previous performances, no more having from purchasing requesting data from inventory who is requesting data from the production line, and no more second-guessing every detail.

Every report can be easily accessed by the appropriate user, helping each and every employee maintain

and increase performance, make informed decisions, and scale the business.

Topic 4: Accuracy in Data

Data integrity and accuracy ensure decisions made today impact the business tomorrow. For example, the manufacturing industry has recently seen margins struggle to maintain consistency. This is due to customers demanding more while the economy recovers from the Pandemic. Many businesses are using multiple spreadsheets with duplicate data.This makes your data prone to human error.

Maintaining accurate, up-to-date data is the difference between having record-breaking profits and closing up shop.

Conclusion:

Let’s face it – data is too important to be ignored. It’s the lifeline of your business. Not only can accurate, accessible, real-time data improve business operations, cut costs, and increase production capacity, but when used effectively, can ensure customers are happy and satisfied.

It’s time to put data to work – go from Excel to excelling with manufacturing management software like ECI’s Manufacturing Products. See here for more information.