3 TECHNOLOGY TRENDS SHAPING MANUFACTURING
This article excerpt, by Mark Davidson, originally appeared here: http://bit.ly/1lC7TVT
Periodically, new technologies are developed that rapidly become pervasive because of the compelling benefits they offer, and as they mature they drive the price/performance ratios to be enticing for companies looking to improve the bottom line.
Here, we explore the impact of three prevalent technologies that are rapidly changing and improving the way manufacturing performance management are operating now and in the future.
1. The Impact of Mobile Technologies on Performance Management: The use of Mobile devices and applications has removed the restrictions of required on-site access, enabling workers from every level of the enterprise to access the performance and decision support information applicable to their respective role, including:
- Executives
- Plant Managers/Supervisors
- Plant Operators
- Technical/Quality Personnel
Facilitating access to all these roles via mobile devices creates an entirely paperless manufacturing environment, and also allows information to be shared between suppliers and customers via similar mobile capabilities.
2. The Role of Cloud Technologies in Performance Management: Though many business leaders still have reservations about the cloud for manufacturing applications, the space is advancing rapidly to address major concerns around connectivity and security, as well as other issues, while making the benefits of cloud adoption too attractive to ignore. Due in part to automatic updates and outsourced IT functionality, cloud platforms will lower the cost of ownership for implementing manufacturing performance software over the long run and decrease the time to implement. Additionally, cloud platforms can make it easier to integrate and compare performance information across multiple plants/facilities and systems.
3. The Coming Effects of Enterprise ‘Big Data’ Technologies on Performance Management: Big data is about harnessing a collection of massive amounts of structured and unstructured data from across the enterprise. As time moves forward, previously unknown interrelationships between data will come to light that will have important impacts on creating new performance management insights, such as:
- Enabling better product/production forecasts that tie to consumer trends
- Improving interactions with suppliers based on dynamic sourcing needs
- Providing faster customer service and support – harnessing knowledge
- Better understanding customer requirements for new products
- Better correlations of performance across multiple plants
- Better understanding plant performance across multiple metrics
- Performing predictive modeling of manufacturing data
- Enabling real-time alerts based on analyzing manufacturing data
- Correlating manufacturing and business performance information together
- Mining combinations of manufacturing and other enterprise data to uncover new improvement and business opportunities