The Business Value of Plant Floor Visibility

The Business Value of Plant Floor Visibility
Empowering Executive Decision Makers




March 2007




The Business Value of Plant Floor Visibility
Executive Summary
Key Business Value Findings Best in Class manufacturers are driven to improve plant floor data management initia-tives by two related yet distinct pressures. In fact, both the desire to improve perform-ance improvement program effectiveness and the desire to improve operational perform-ance visibility motivates the majority of Best in Class manufacturers, 70% in both cases. These manufacturers have also realized that the best way to address these pressures is with a technology centric approach. Again, the majority of Best in Class manufacturers, 65% and 55% respectively, are utilizing technology to both automate the collection of plant floor data and then subsequently display relevant data to the appropriate decision makers in a timely manner.
Implications & Analysis Aberdeen's analysis of over 150 plant floor data management initiatives has resulted in the correlation of specific business capabilities in the areas of process, organization, knowledge and technology to Best in Class operational performance. Best in Class manufacturers are 15% more likely to be utilizing plant floor data that has been collected from an automated source. This data is 40% more likely to have been collected in real time and 31% more likely to have been integrated with ERP. Best in Class manufactur-ers, in regards to enterprise organization and knowledge management, are 13% more likely to manage plant floor data initiatives at the corporate level and are 26% more likely to give executive decision makers plant floor visibility. These characteristics of Best in Class business capabilities are the foundation for the following recommendations.
Recommendations for Action . Collected data should be integrated with ERP to solidify corporate buy in and ownership of plant floor data management initiatives. . Utilize an automated visualization and analytics solution to provide plant floor visibility to executive decision makers. . Utilize an automated plant floor data collection solution to provide real time plant floor data visibility. . Best in Class manufacturers are four times more likely to be utilizing Manu-facturing Intelligence solutions. Manufacturers should adopt this type of so-lution and utilizing the technology to implement the above three recommen-dations.
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary .............................................................................................. i Key Business Value Findings.......................................................................... i Implications & Analysis ................................................................................... i Recommendations for Action.......................................................................... i
Chapter One: Issue at Hand.................................................................................1 Operational Performance Defines Best in Class............................................ 2 Driving Pressures .......................................................................................... 2 Strategic Actions............................................................................................ 3
Chapter Two: Competitive Maturity Assessment .................................................5 Competitive Maturity Assessment.................................................................. 6 Data Collection .............................................................................................. 6 Integrating Plant Floor Data........................................................................... 9
Chapter Three: Recommendations for Action .................................................... 11 Industry Laggard Steps to Success ............................... [download for more]