How a data driven approach will achieve operational excellence
From March issue, NZ Manufacturer www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz -Scott Adams, Managing Principal, Argon & Co Many Kiwis have good instincts, or just good common sense, for our decision making. We might not be experts in all fields but we’re good enough to get by, and with a bit of focus we can adapt. We are, for example, certainly quite expert at managing rugby games from our couch: what combinations work, how to play against the opposition, and how much the interference of the TMO is destroying the game. But it would also be generally true that we are not so good with facts and data, where we often have high levels of distrust combined with a generally low level of competency in creating and utilising data. Whenever my consulting firm, Argon & Co, is asked to help a company to improve operational performance we always ask for data: how many projects and what scale, how many different services and products, how much waste, and how much margin. Then we ask for more data, and we will keep asking for more data until we have a clear idea of how much work is ahead of us because it usually does not take long before the well of data dries up and this is especially so with operational performance data. This lack of collecting and utilising data is one of the direct causes of our very low position on the OECD productivity (GDP per hour worked) list. If I am asked by a manufacturing company what is the best digital solution for them, my response is that the first step is to use digital, or automated, methods to collect and manage operational performance data to pick up process throughput, waste, and speed to deliver. Though the world of digital is more exciting if […]