Dynamics Matters Podcast Ep 54: How data can improve manufacturing productivity

Welcome to episode 54 of the HSO Dynamics matters podcast.

Your regular sonic dive into the world of Microsoft technology related matters and much more besides.

I’m your host Michael Lonnon, and in today’s episode HSOs Head of Data and Analytics – Doug McConchie – and I, are talking data and manufacturing.

Namely, why data is so important in the manufacturing process, why it’s critical to have sight of it and to manage it well, and how manufacturers can do this.

So, grab a brew, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

Michael Lonnon

What’s more important strategy or tactics?

Doug McConchie

You definitely need a strategy, first

Michael Lonnon

So, you think you need a strategy before you can then start delivering the tactics because that’s more important?

Doug McConchie

You do.

Michael Lonnon

On that topic, in the world of manufacturing and digital transformation why is data important in developing a strategy for digital transformation in manufacturing?

Doug McConchie

I think really, it’s important to help you sort through all the various choices open to you. In the world of manufacturing, there’s so many different things, so many different agendas, so many different opportunities to use data in a better way, you can be literally spoilt for choice. So, you do need to be strategic in thinking through what’s right for you and your business, and how you get the most out of those data assets within your organisation. If you don’t do that, to seek that strategic thinking upfront, and really think through, how does this align to our business mission, how do we actually make this really beneficial for what we do as an organisation and where we are in our maturity, you’re going to struggle to be successful and that’s what we want. We want you to use your data assets successfully. Therefore, you’ve got to be pragmatic, down to the realisation you can’t do everything, you’ve got to focus and make the most of your budgets and resources. And that’s why a data strategy is needed.

Michael Lonnon

What are some of the things that a manufacturer might include within their data strategy?

Doug McConchie

Some of the options out there will come down to wanting to think through things like resilience. How from an end-to-end perspective in my manufacturing cycles, how do I join up various data silos, so I have visibility. That will A, give you resilience. You’ll understand what’s going on, but B you’ll be able to see the opportunity areas to improve performance. So, breaking down those silos is absolutely key to automating the data process flows, if you like, across those silos. It’s fundamental. Automation will free people up, free up resources from capturing data, and instead there’ll be using data. Another classic area is using data from various machineries to identify areas for things like predictive maintenance across manufacturing. So rather than wait for things to break down, look for early warning signals, so you can get in and prevent things from breaking down, saving you time, money, and so on. Once you’ve got data across that end to end, you can look at how you optimise your processes. Look at having digital twins, for example, to spot areas for improvement, be smarter in your use of data so that you can identify anomalies sooner.

Michael Lonnon

Being cut and dry about this, better management of your data, from a manufacturing point of view, leads to better efficiencies in the manufacturing process and so reduces the cost of manufacturing the products that go to customers. That’s what it’s about, isn’t it?

Doug McConchie

It is. I tend to think of it a bit of a maturity curve type approach. The first step is thinking through how do we make things more efficient? How do we operate more efficiently end to end? Once you’ve got that efficiency of understanding what performance is you can then start thinking through, are we actually as effective as we could be? Could we be doing things differently and reorganising our manufacturing process to get even more value from it? Obviously, you can then start managing that more proactively through things like preventative maintenance cycles, through digital twins, through other data initiatives, which would help you drive the effectiveness of management of your manufacturing activities. In addition to that, there’s the top level of the maturity curve. Its innovation and thinking through what would really help us transform the way we do things. And data is a key input to that. So, looking for the opportunities to leverage data, leverage your insights in a better way to take your performance to the next level.

Michael Lonnon

That’s a really interesting point. About handling data and what you can see, it leads to a focus on innovation, you can identify ways to improve how you’re manufacturing things, the types of technology you’re bringing in to do that, how does data help that?

Doug McConchie

Data is the lifeblood of all organisations in particular the world of manufacturing. By understanding what performance is in reality in your organisation, it allows you to start feeding through into the next level of performance. Everybody’s talking about AI, everybody’s talking about machine learning and so on, are you actually doing that at the moment, or are you just monitoring what happened on your manufacturing line, what happened last hour, what happened last week, etc, or actually using it to predict what’s going into the future and using algorithms to build out machine learning processes, so you can get to the next level of performance. Those are just a couple of areas. But equally, you could use data to inform better processes, build better processes, reengineer your activities, so you can optimise those process flows, and build out applications which are missing in your estate, so you get even better processes happening and more accurate processes. So that you really are sweating the information assets you have across your manufacturing flow.

Michael Lonnon

It creates understanding of where you are and how you’re managing data within your manufacturing process. It allows you to see insights and make more proactive changes about the way you’re approaching the manufacturing steps. How might a manufacturer start putting together a data strategy?

Doug McConchie

I mentioned up front, you’ve got to start with what are you doing as a business, what’s your mission and purpose. Start with that, because being clear about that and thinking through how data can enable that to happen more systematically, more smoothly, in a more agile way is key. It then helps if you have a robust data strategy framework in place. At HSO we think through the capabilities and assess performance around those data capabilities. So, we think through not just about the technology, not just about the actual datasets themselves, but also the processes, the people, and the governance capabilities, you have. So have a framework which you can use to assess where you are and where you need to be in the future. That’s a key thing. Lastly, be coherent about how data links through to the business goals you have. Do you have the right metrics, the right KPIs in place? Are they giving you the right insights that you need to manage your business successfully?

Michael Lonnon

In terms of Microsoft, how can they help in the development of a data strategy and the implementation of the suggestions and the tools within?

Doug McConchie

Microsoft has a huge estate of different tooling to use. It really is at the leading edge of capabilities in many areas. So when thinking through which tools to use, HSO supports its customers in going through the diagnostic of what it is you’re trying to achieve, and therefore what tooling would be best applied to that. So that it’s delivered in an optimal way. That tooling really is across the piece and a lot of organisations worry around things like data security, for example. Microsoft has some incredibly strong and leading approaches around just that one aspect of data security. It has tooling such as Key Vault as your security Centre, the Active Directory, there’s a range of different tools. It’s a long list of different tools, which need to be applied to think through how you would manage your data securely, in that end-to-end flow, but similarly across all aspects, thinking through what the best tooling is, how best to use it, to enable data governance, to enable the data pipelines to work smoothly, to make sure the costs are optimised. That’s what HSO is there to support and enable.

Michael Lonnon

The tools you use, the technologies you implement, you will identify during the data strategy development, and they will be based upon how your business operates today, what it is you’re trying to achieve in the future and those sorts of things.

Doug McConchie

You don’t do everything. There are so many different tools out there and, let’s face it, an organisation starting off will have a load of existing systems and existing tools is already in use. So, we need to make sure that we don’t just throw all of those away and implement new ones. It’s using the right tools for the right job, which is absolutely key. We will support customers in working through have they got the right tool sets; do they have the right capabilities to use those tool sets so that success can actually happen.

Michael Lonnon

Finally, would you say that no digital transformation programme can really be successful unless data strategy element is part of it?

Doug McConchie

Ultimately, the answer is yes. You can have tactical success obviously, but really, it needs to be aligned to the long-term view of what you’re trying to achieve as a business. Only through doing that will you really focus your resources on making sure that you maximise the opportunity and you really bring the right team on board, the right technology on board, the right processes and board to make your success is likely as strong to happen as possible.

Summary
In manufacturing, without a data strategy underpinning a robust data management policy, you will have limited sight of what is going on in your supply chain.

For example, how much stock is being carried, where it’s being held, where are the pinch points in the supply chain, the profitability of one product over another – well managed data provides the insight from which to make faster and more accurate decisions. Whilst also breaking down silos, automating process flows, and freeing up resources from capturing data to instead to using data for good.

Efficiency, profitability, and stability are all intrinsically linked to good data management.

Thanks for listening, until next time, take care of yourselves.