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Ananth Uggirala is the director of product and UX at Drishti. Ananth joined Drishti full-time in 2017 and worked on building our groundbreaking product from an early stage. He is a passionate thinker about the potential of design and technology in improving people’s lives.
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We are in the middle of a data revolution. New technology is creating and using data in a manner to push the boundaries of industrial capability more than ever before. Drishti, in particular, has been delivering results for its manufacturing customers by delivering insights from previously unmeasurable details in production – on manual assembly tasks. Indeed, we are in a veritable ocean of data. The field of data analytics is booming and new methods of thinking about that data are emerging as a result. It’s more important than ever for organizations to understand which data to reference and how to discern whether or not it has real value within operations.
As stated, the potential for having never-ending streams measuring every aspect of your workflow is possible. As the measurement options increase, it becomes more important to discern why those things are being measured in the first place. Having a data point is only good if it means something.
Leaders should not take their key performance indicators (KPIs) for granted. I have seen several facilities where there were no less than 25 KPIs at the line level. At any one time, perhaps only five of those KPIs provided a useful benchmark. By useful, I mean the KPI actually told an actionable story about what was happening in the facility. That is not to say that many of those KPIs were not useful from different perspectives in those organizations, but at the line level, it did the workers and line managers no good to be flooded with that kind of information.
It’s tempting to measure something just for the sake of doing it. But if everything is important then nothing is important. If the data presented does not clearly show you a real story on the floor, it may not be practically valuable. I say “practically,” because many interesting insights can be gained from data sets that have no actionable quality.
Without a clear understanding of the things you are measuring, the data will not have resonance.
For example, on-time-reliability (OTR) is the measure of whether or not you delivered to a customer based off of the date your business promised.
On-time-capability (OTC) is the measure of whether or not you delivered to a customer based off of the date they requested. Your organization can work on reducing lead times but this KPI is still largely outside of your control as opposed to OTR, where the expectation is set internally.
It’s a small difference that makes a huge impact when measuring business efficacy.
If you look at a chart of the data, and the data is higher or lower, does that mean something to you in relation to that KPI? Are tolerances defined? Do you and the people that are stakeholders understand what is a “big deal” as it relates to increases and decreases in the number?
If your data does not have a recognizable distribution or pattern, then you may be in error. You might be measuring the wrong thing, not being precise enough or choosing the wrong period of time. It may also be that the process you are choosing to measure is not well defined enough.
If any of these questions cannot be reasonably answered, you may actually be wasting more time by gathering your data points.
Drishti collects a lot of data — the reason it’s meaningful is because it measures the actual efficacy of your physical processes. It challenges your assumptions about whether or not your processes are well-defined and whether or not your people are performing them to your standard. From our AI-powered video platform we are able to deliver data continuously, in real time, straight from the point of value in manufacturing — the assembly workstation.
From Drishti’s data, you can paint a clear picture about performance and easily prioritize your issues, assign training, shorten root cause analysis and collaborate with subject matter experts, delivering them the data they need. Our robust customizable reporting suite delivers important information that highlights trends on your line, helps forecast and show issues of concern. Not only does our reporting suite allow for quick review of line performance, but if any issues are found, they come with video evidence attached. Unlike other kinds of data, video always tells a story.
Find out more about how Drishti can provide insights to the line and help plant management make more insightful decisions faster than ever before.
