Companies achieve manufacturing excellence when people have the tools they need to produce high-quality work. On the shop floor, this comes about through the marriage of workers and machinery and the refining of processes through constant care and iteration. The source of this excellence lies in the quality of information manufacturers can draw out of their operations and share with their workforce to continuously improve performance and worker productivity.
Plants operate by the numbers. Monitors and whiteboards display key performance indicators and statistics by hour and shift. Information is drawn from a variety of sources to provide a common source of truth that helps teams focus on performance, output and potential issues. To operate as a true, connected workcell, workers rely on data to inform their workflows and maintain productivity. Few manufacturers today are lacking for data; the challenge lies in contextualizing the data into a story that can ring true for the whole operation. That journey to the truth starts by getting visibility into what’s really happening on the front lines.