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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.
I think about new ways to present data fairly often and it’s no wonder — I create software for a living. One thing I’ve learned through developing an entirely new dataset on manual assembly is that not all data is consumed equally. Some customers need live, on the spot intelligence, while others are best served by a more paced stream of information.
No matter on which end of the consumption spectrum your need for business intelligence falls, it’s important to understand when data is available, what the data is telling you and how to use it. After all, turning data into information is what fuels your manufacturing insights and decision making.
I recently read some encouraging news for manufacturers looking to increase their business intelligence know-how. According to a recent report by Dresner Advisory Services, 89% of the manufacturers who had business intelligence initiatives considered those projects successful. This number outpaced their peers in comparable industries.
It’s not surprising that manufacturers are having to get really good at analyzing information given the enormous amount of technology and systems they continue to adopt. At last count, 40% of manufacturing equipment is now connected to the internet (IoT). While machine data continues to pour in, the sources of manufacturing data are continuing to proliferate.
Drishti customers are already turning that influx of data into business intelligence — empowering engineers, line supervisors and associates. Our customers’ lines reflect the fact that 72% of all factory tasks are performed by people, not machines. Yet prior to having our unique AI-based ability to recognize actions on manual assembly lines, our customers had to spend weeks collecting data manually. Today, with Drishti, data on cycle times and step counts is collected automatically and reports are immediately generated for line variability, anomalies, production trends and more.
We’ve come a long way from recognizing a huge need for intelligence on manual assembly lines and supplying our customers with real-time analytics and on-demand video. Now we’re taking it one step further with our new Drishti Reporting Service.
The Drishti Reporting Service is simple in concept and powerful in practice. We’ve taken a snapshot of our customers’ daily and weekly line analytics — reports on line variability, average cycle times, anomalies and more — created a subscription service and enabled our customers to receive it when and where they want. They receive timely information, delivered to their inbox for access anywhere.
For example, plant and operations managers can regularly monitor assembly performance and provide support needed by the team to keep production on track. The Reporting Service aggregates information by line, so managers can see total time lost due to bottlenecks, microstops or material issues. Reports show trends of daily cycles and outliers, so they understand if production is heading in the right direction.
Likewise on a daily basis, line managers and supervisors sign up to get the station-by-station intelligence they need to make adjustments on the line and provide coaching to line associates. Each station can be evaluated for variability to uncover the source of slow downs and quality issues. Shift-level data can be used to compare cycle times by station, so they quickly know how to distribute work in successive shifts. Additionally, anomalies are aggregated by line and prioritized by frequency. They’re presented with video evidence compiled and easily accessed via a web link to the Drishti Portal.
And the best part, our customers no longer have to be in front of their computers, clicking through screens and mapping information to have actionable insights. They streamline their decision-making processes and make the calls that drive improvements with Drishti intelligence in hand.
Consistency with business intelligence is the key. As the old adage goes, practice makes perfect. We understood that our customers had a challenge with exercising our assembly data set and it was critical that we respond with a solution that allows them to be successful with new information.
The Drishti product team continues to develop Drishti for consistent use by operations, quality and management teams so their day-to-day observations and expert gut feelings get the regular back-up and proof points they need. When you pair a better understanding of what’s happened on the line with the ability to to evaluate decisions on a regular basis you get the perfect environment for supporting and strengthening decision making across the board.
I’m excited to have our customers exercise their business intelligence skills with our new Reporting Service. It’s a simple but extremely effective leap forward in building business intelligence success with Drishti data.
Measuring manual assembly performance at scale is now possible with Drishti. Talk to us about your business intelligence needs.
