In manufacturing, where quality sets you apart from the competition, having precise and efficient production processes is crucial. Test data is more valuable than ever, and technology provides unprecedented opportunities to unlock insights from this data. So why do many companies still miss out on key chances to optimize and improve their production? What makes data-driven manufacturers stand out? Read on to find out.
Recurring Challenges in Test Data Management
Recently, we visited a factory that produce a single component for a popular car brand. Despite a reception area filled with quality certs, the testing data was incongruous – text files scattered everywhere with no standardization. They were making great quality products, but their focus on a totally process-driven approach made it difficult to leverage their data to improve further.
It’s clear that the manufacturing sector is dominated by businesses that put quality first and have done so consistently for many many years. Those investing in cutting-edge machinery are continuing to capture market share and retain it over their competitors. However, while the machines are cutting-edge, the software running in the background is sometimes outdated, not offering real-time access or insight.
That’s been a recurring theme we’ve seen since we started: Companies identify as both machine and software providers but often lean more heavily on their machinery. Testing processes are definitely robust in the sector but focus on a binary approach – pass or fail – barely scratching the surface of the data’s potential. Machinery gets more and more advanced, but software often lags behind. The challenge is getting access to the data and having it in a usable format.
Limitations of Process-Driven Approaches in Manufacturing
Consider the pioneers of quality, like Toyota, who introduced concepts like Cpk, Six Sigma, and innovative approaches like go/no-go. These practices are still embraced throughout the automotive sector and beyond because they’re so effective at helping companies meet quality standards. This process-driven mindset – where the focus is on moving products along the line, ensuring they meet quality standards, and rejecting those that don’t – is popular because it guarantees a certain quality level. But it stops short of leveraging data to optimize processes, increase yield, and cut costs. These companies generate a whole host of data while maintaining these high levels of quality, so the need is to get more value from it.
Uncovering the Hidden Value in Your Test Data
As a company dedicated to test data management we see the value of data every day. We’ve seen, throughout the years, how valuable access to the right data in real-time is. In terms of immediate cost-savings in production, reducing re-testing volumes, to the reduction of risk for future claims. Adding new dimensions to your test data, allows you to look at trends, analyze, and understand the nuances of your testing outcomes – that’s where the value is. And, it goes beyond just your testing teams. R&D teams, for example, massively benefit from surfacing outliers as they can often represent future product failures and claims.
Common Traits of Data-Driven Manufacturers
By transitioning to a more data-driven approach, we’ve seen real cultural shifts in our partners’ production environments. Companies that once stored valuable data on aging servers are now harnessing that data to drive improvements. What we’ve seen is that companies who succeed in making this shift, tend to have these things in common:
- Their production and testing teams are actively seek new ways to manage production data
- Short decision-making processes and cross-functional collaboration
- A software strategy focused on micro-services instead of building a monolithic architecture
- An organizational mindset focused on becoming more data-driven
What we’ve seen over the years is that the value of getting access to your test data from WATS has given our customer insights and immediate cost-reductions which represents significant improvement in their production, ROI on machinery, and spending less time preparing data versus using data.
“Almost immediately after adopting WATS we were exposed to the most present weaknesses in our manufacturing test systems. Within the first month of usage we were able to reduce the failures in our first test step run by 50%, significantly reducing the need to retest our products”
Stefan Ledbert, Manager Test Development, Scanreco
