Blog

Democratizing Insights with a Connected Workforce Solution

Across industries, data and IT teams work together to aggregate data, convert data into insights, and provide teams with easy access to the information they need to make better decisions. This typically means providing teams with real-time data, visualization capabilities, and reports.

This trend is called democratizing insights. The reason why it’s so important is that employees make dozens of decisions every day with the information they have, which can include incomplete, aging, or incorrect data. VentureBeat says global losses to bad data exceed $3T annually, while the average organization experiences yearly losses of $12.9 million. Organizations can experience losses due to inaccurate sales projections, failed product launches, customer attrition, lost productivity, and other issues.

For manufacturers, democratizing insights is critical. Manufacturing is a data-driven industry and has become even more so as manufacturers collect more unstructured data from IoT-connected devices and other sources. Manufacturers want to empower workers with the data they need to make critical production decisions that improve product quality and drive throughput.

QAD Redzone helps manufacturers accomplish these goals. Manufacturers deploy the QAD Redzone Connected Workforce Solution and work with coaches over 90 days to accomplish five measurable lean journey goals:

• Creating a visual factory, measuring overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) measurement, and making data visible to all, plant-wide and in real-time
• Coaching all operators and supervisors on foundational lean and problem-solving skills
• Improving OEE by at least eight percentage points by the end of day 90
• Achieve mid-six-figure cost savings for smaller plants and seven-figure cost savings for larger plants, as verified by the plant’s finance function
• Sustaining all gains made in the first 90 days and continuing to improve over the long term

With QAD Redzone teams:

• Surface real-time production data: Teams see data on overhead TV screens, iPads by production equipment, and their smartphone app. As a result, they’re always aware of current production conditions and can more easily identify anomalies.
  
• Move from reactive to proactive problem solving: Production problems often worsen when not addressed, and equipment failures can cost significant sums to address. Operators are trained to use QAD Redzone to capture data and imagery of production issues and work with each other and other functions to solve problems. As this process occurs issue by issue, line by line, problems get solved faster, enabling plants to drive throughput.
  
• Enable new standard work: Teams use standard work processes that reduce waste, increase production consistency, and help solve quality issues. They also solve problems that make it easier to complete production runs. Daily successes create a reinforcement loop, motivating teams to use QAD Redzone and continually improve processes.
  
• Create a learning culture: Instead of reading paper-based manuals and documents, teams use QAD Redzone to create their learning, from videos on how to use equipment to easy-to-access documentation on processes. QAD Redzone helps create a collegial environment where employees want to share their knowledge and help others succeed.

Democratizing insights has never been more critical. Those manufacturers that accomplish this goal will maximize opportunities for driving business growth and enhancing profitability.

Learn more about QAD Redzone.