Over the past many months, I’ve had the privilege and opportunity to speak to many of our customers – but also prospects, investors, and others involved in the industrial manufacturing sector. What I learned from them was eye-opening about their plans for 2022, and the role of data and analytics in their future.

Data Data Everywhere

We all know manufacturers are awash in data. It reminds me of the line from a famous poem – “water water everywhere, and nor any drop to drink”. In the same vein, there is data everywhere manufacturers look around – factory MES systems, ERP/MRP systems, CRMs…you name it, every single system in their enterprise has more data than they can possibly analyze and process.

Effectively using data

So how are the best going about it? The old African proverb gives us a hint: “how do you eat an elephant? one small bite at a time” 

In other words, no big-bang implementations of any kind, but many small, agile projects with very specific goals and milestones in short defined projects. This may feel like a conservative way to go about these projects, but in reality, this approach is the best balance between risk and reward. 

Some topics that are being addressed are driven by recent supply chain disruptions: reviewing purchasing data for cost reductions, building early warning dashboards to spot potential shortages before they occur, and using AI to drive inventory planning.

Data Quality and Integrity

But manufacturers are also realizing that many of these ideas can’t get off the ground because of data quality issues. So many of these initiatives are being delayed as analytics teams struggle with poor data quality. In this context, some of the more transformational companies are focusing heavily on data quality improvements first: master data management, master data governance, and cataloging, etc. Only then can they embark on more complicated, ambitious projects.

Finally – tying these to specific return on investment and operating plan commitments makes these projects “real” and not get relegated to the heap of incomplete initiatives. Making someone’s bonus dependent on business results is the surest way to get things done!

Image: Entytle Installed Base Platform

We at Entytle, Inc. provide an Installed Base Platform for Industrial OEMs to unify, organize and analyze their customers’ information while significantly improving available data quality. Insyghts, a SaaS platform, incorporates purpose-built AI/ML analytics to identify sales and service opportunities to increase wallet share from the OEM’s installed base. Entytle is trusted by Industry leaders including Johnson Controls, Baker Hughes, Peerless Pump, Dematic, ColeParmer, and many more who use Entytle to drive organic growth at scale. Learn more at www.entytle.com.