Companies gamble in small ways every day. They gamble raw materials will arrive on time and will be what was ordered. They gamble customers will continue to buy products with a sustainable financial margin. Will employees be up to the task of running and if needed, adjusting production processes to maintain the quality customers require? We all roll the dice and the odds vary greatly, but in a business context, they all share a common feature, risk.
GainSeeker Suite real-time SPC software can have a profound impact on a business, and even on a whole supply chain. What makes that possible? It seemed to me that we could boil it down to a few really big differences between GainSeeker and most of the rest of the software that is out there for collecting, managing, and analyzing manufacturing quality data. Here is my short list of the top features.
In the next few weeks we’ll release GainSeeker Version 8.8. The most important new feature? Real-time dashboards that connect to any data source. Manufacturing leaders are often hobbled by antiquated and disparate data systems. These folks are working under tremendous pressure to get results, but they struggle to meet their goals. It isn’t because they’re not working hard; they are. And it isn’t because they don’t know what they’re doing. They’re bright, hard-working and competent. And it isn’t that they lack data. They have lots of data. In fact, they’re drowning in data. But that data is not visible, it’s not timely, it lacks context, or it’s in a form that is pretty much useless. Connecting real-time dashboards to any data source breaks down barriers to data so that information is timely, visible, and actionable. If you have data hidden in your order entry, scheduling system, or factory information system, you can bring it to the light of day on a GainSeeker Dashboard.
So what do fire hydrants and Real Time SPC Software have in common? Recently I sat down with a client to talk about how deploying GainSeeker Real Time SPC Software has benefited his company. Joseph Benford (everyone calls him "Buddy") is the Corporate Quality Manager for Mueller Co. Mueller is a 160 year-old manufacturing company that started in central Illinois. They manufacture water distribution products, including fire hydrants and a variety of valves and gates, with a number of facilities across North America.
Big Data is already here. Gages, devices, and innumerable sensors produce mountains of data. This equipment is connected by USB ports and various communication protocols in vast networks of operational data. Chances are you are buried under manufacturing big data. OAK is a free tool from Hertzler Systems. It asks the right questions to help you and your team uncover the critical connections between business drivers, strategic outcomes, actions, decisions, and data. One customer said, “The OAK worksheet prompts all the right questions. Fits very well connecting top to bottom. This was a good exercise.” Download a free copy of OAK today.
A new case study highlights how a corporate quality manager helped create a more flexible supply chain, The story describes the top three reasons clients choose GainSeeker Suite SPC Software, from two perspectives: the CIO and the Senior Quality Manager.
A new case study highlights how a national, multiplant foods company used real-time data to reduce overpack. The effort resulted in a multimillion dollar savings. One striking aspect of this story is the level of frustration our client felt with the way things worked before implementing GainSeeker. Because he was working with old, outdated information, he was stuck with a rear-view mirror perspective. This is something many of our clients have in common: having to make decisions with inadequate knowledge.
How does real-time manufacturing intelligence help? A new case study describes how PLZ Aeroscience implemented GainSeeker Suite, resulting in reduced material costs, higher production numbers, reduced inventory and raw material costs, increased revenue, and several other benefits.
While I'm naturally inclined to skepticism about the latest buzzword trend, "Systems of Insight" resonates with me. It matches what I see our customers doing with GainSeeker Suite, and the value they're striving to get from working with us. Clearly GainSeeker Suite, as a Manufacturing Intelligence Platform, is aligned with this vision of a System of Insight. Whether we're talking about turning field failures into supply chain leadership, or reducing product giveaway, or knowing where stuff is, or improving manufacturing performance, or any other application of real-time actionable intelligence, the ability to gain insight from data and make better, faster decisions is critical. GainSeeker delivers.
A new report by the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) has flagged analytics to identify root causes as one of the critical recommendations in their Quality2020 Survey. The new report is available free from the AIAG website. It looks at data from across the automotive supply chain.
