Big Data for Manufacturing: 4 use cases for optimizing and competitive advantage.
This is the age of information the age of big data. As we enter it, it s clear that neither life nor business will ever be the same. And already, manufacturers who have found the new alchemy of turning data to value are recording record profits and climbing to new heights of productivity. Travis Hessman IndustryWeek Associate Editor Share this ebook: 2
1 Product Complexity A steady stream of customer requests eventually leads to an enormous list of options for customers to choose Manufacturers carry number of options. This expanded product variety also leads to a data problem. If each spec sheet has ten or more input variables and a model are being sold. A manufacturer could easily tell you the number of Model Xs sold in 2013 in red, for example, but pneumatic attachments, and air conditioning. models and each of their varying product options, from all of the items that were sold, quickly becomes a complex, highly dimensional problem that is impossible through pivot tables. Today advanced analytics software for manufacturing deliver the models that will satisfy most customers needs and more customers. 3
We d think of an option and just add it to the product, and we d keep adding and never delete anything. We felt like we were taking something away from customers if we removed an option. With so many options, our planning was poor, leading to longer and longer lead times. Jacky Williamson Ditch Witch Pricing, Product Structure and Target Costing Manager Share this ebook: 4
2 likely Supply Chain Optimization that the supply chain is equally complicated. The capability to create a highly customized product means that the multitudes of add-ons, options, and attributes must be ordered, stored, and delivered. This leads to high carrying costs and locks a great deal of resources into the supply chain. Inventory and supply chain costs then creep up slowly and often go unnoticed by manufacturers until a tipping point is reached. With advanced analytics tools a manufacturer can address these costs several ways: needs of most customers, a manufacturer can reduce the parts inventory they must carry in anticipation of custom orders. Analytics solutions also reduce the supply chain burden through predictive analytics. With better data, manufacturers can be more predictive about the seasonal and year by year demand for models sit before they are sold. 5
3 As Guided Selling manufacturers have embraced the web they have created new customers and salespeople to build out orders with exactly the unpredictable supply chain or high carrying costs. New analytics solutions can be the bridge between a manufacturer. manufacturers and their customers with a much smoother, by Emcien is the ability to automatically guide sales people or drive than a customized model, while the manufacturer can deliver an existing product faster and cheaper, reducing the build costs and the time that products sit in inventory. 6
Emcien provides industry leading pattern-based analytics solutions for optimizing product proliferation across the enterprise as well as for taming the complex processes faced by modern sales forces. John Bruno NCR Corporation Chief Technology Officer Share this ebook: 7
4 Emcien s Product Competitiveness software features a technology that gives manufacturers a unique competitive advantage. Manufacturers that have highly configurable products are often asked to match a competitor s solution and price. The old response to this request was for a salesperson or the customer to use a configurator or build a similar model by approximating features. Emcien software allows sales representatives and even the customers themselves to enter a competitor s model and return the best match for a competing product. Each competitor s product offering and it s corresponding feature are entered only once and the API delivers the model and configuration that best meets the customer s requirements. It has never been easier to answer the question, What do you have like this one? 8
Leveraging Big Data to Improve your Bottom Line Emcien s suite of software provides a complete and automated analysis of structured and unstructured data. For manufacturers, Emcien s software computes sales and configuration data to provide configurations that will provide the greatest impact to the bottom line. With Emcien s solutions, manufacturers can: Reduce the number of custom, one-off orders Get a big-picture understanding of your product offerings Discover the product configurations that meet the needs of most customers Automated APIs to create an intelligent configurator Guided selling to direct sales towards most appropriate models Minimize build costs and reduce carried inventory Request a Live Demo Share this ebook: 9