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Cloud Manufacturing 3 min read

Is downtime the downfall of manufacturing?

Unscheduled downtime is ranked as the top threat to maximising revenue in manufacturing as it leads to productivity hazards – hampering employee time and requiring a lot of maintenance and troubleshooting. In a joint study by Honeywell and KRC, 64% of manufacturers said they experienced unscheduled downtime, with 71% explaining that this downtime was due to equipment breakdowns.
Fortunately, issues like these are avoidable with proper data care and protection. With modern technology, manufacturers can track data from their equipment, helping them to observe their hardware’s quality and analyse its efficiency. Preventive measures can then be implemented based on this data, such as fixing a machine before it breaks to minimise downtime and boost productivity.

It’s predicted that this use of data will become a $9.11 billion commodity in manufacturing by 2026 – making it imperative that manufacturers start to implement these innovations soon. Integrating data in an organisation ensures an optimised supply chain, empowering organisations to process information-enhancing insights while advising decision-making and automating processes. As demonstrated above, simply collecting and storing data isn’t enough. Leveraging actionable data insights is critical for achieving faster production times and cost efficiency across a company, utilising data to identify patterns in consumer behaviours and analysing trends in the market. Elevating how data is used can optimise operational efficiency and improve overall business practices.

Typically, manufacturing organisations operate with several legacy disparate systems for each business area, with siloed data spread across an estate. This is a time-consuming process, and the lack of standardisation usually leads to mistrust in the reports, undermining the task and limiting the purpose of analytics in the first place.
Understanding, collecting, and analysing data allows a better understanding of operations, customers, and pain points. This enables new, innovative approaches to improve operations and performance. Data can even reduce breakdowns by up to 26%, cutting unscheduled downtime by nearly a quarter.

Big data analytics can reduce equipment breakdowns by 70%, unscheduled downtime by 68%, unscheduled maintenance by 64%, and supply chain management issues by 60%.
The data produced by every organisation is invaluable, but many find themselves unable to use it in a way that allows them to make better decisions. The data-driven approach to manufacturing production enables unrivalled accuracy, allowing for a strict set of KPIs to guide decision-making. Data enable well-informed decisions to be made in real-time by 63%, limit waste by 57%, and predict the risk of downtime by 56%.
A modern data platform can consume data in any format, from anywhere, and process it in a central location. Consequently, you can start generating business intelligence analysis almost immediately, whether you’re collating data from internal systems, virtual chatbot assistants, or intelligent sensors.

ANS has worked with several organisations to build and deploy a modern data platform to uncover and act on undeveloped trends in their data while improving data governance to make wiser business decisions. The ANS Modern Data Platform Navigator is designed to help you overcome the complexities of modernising your current data platform while demystifying the complexities of adopting cloud data services. We can help you define and build your data strategy to help unlock the potential of your data and increase its value to your organisation.