Labor shortages, throughput issues, rising costs, and aggregating data for root cause analysis can hinder leaders from improving their success rates. Gatepoint Research partnered with SimplyDirect to survey senior manufacturing executives on their goals, production capabilities, and continuous improvement efforts. These findings can guide how real-time data analytics support improved efficiency and revenue growth.
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How is Your Organization’s Continuous Improvement in Manufacturing?
For most respondents, improvement activities are focused on supply chain constraints. Once companies obtain and organize their materials, it is important they manage high-performance production issues, aggregate data so they understand their processes, and ultimately address time-loss issues.
on a related note
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What is your primary role in quality initiatives at your company?
What production constraints are you currently focused on improving?
Real-time data is the best way to inform more efficient corrective actions, according to over half of survey respondents. In fact, respondents were five times more likely to express a need for real-time data than additional funding, illustrating that financial resources are not a major constraint. Other top needs include better tracking of improvement results and faster root cause analysis. Accurate and concurrent data analytics are needed to implement these corrective (or preventative) changes.
Hover over bar chart for more.
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What business goals are you most focused on in the next 12 months?
What do you need to add to your continuous improvement efforts?
More than half of respondents run their programs reactively—meaning they wait for a problem to occur before resolving it. Organizations need an objective measure of what projects to prioritize—that way, they can rest easy knowing red flags will be raised before production hiccups turn into major bottlenecks. Without an objective measure of what projects need to be prioritized, it is difficult to know if you are focusing on the most important issues. Prioritizing the problems of the moment over more costly challenges can reduce the impact of your efforts.
Next
Does your continuous improvement program(s) run in cycles?
More than half of respondents run their programs reactively—meaning they wait for a problem to occur before resolving it. Organizations need an objective measure of what projects to prioritize—that way, they can rest easy knowing red flags will be raised before production hiccups turn into major bottlenecks. Without an objective measure of what projects need to be prioritized, it is difficult to know if you are focusing on the most important issues. Improving the performance of bottlenecks gives you a much better return on your CI effort than focusing on the problems of the moment.
Next
Does your continuous improvement program(s) run in cycles?
4%
6%
43%
39%
8%
When is the next project slated to begin?
on a related note
Over a third of respondents don’t know when their next project will begin. By understanding in real-time the impact and priorities of production issues, operations teams can make the case for getting started sooner.
Over 50% of the surveyed organizations have demonstrated an increased interest in continuous improvement over the last 12 months, while nearly the same amount have maintained their stance on the topic. Improvement initiatives are a big investment—it is important organizations ensure their additional resource commitments are effectively targeted at key bottlenecks and integral productivity areas. Hover over bar chart for more.
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How has your organization’s interest in implementing improvement initiatives changed in the last year?
41%
29%
14%
8%
8%
How well does your current PLM technology support your closed-loop quality goals?
53% of respondents see room for improvement, including 10% who candidly admit their technology is not handling their closed-loop quality needs well at all.
I am / have been a key participant in one more quality initiatives
I am a team / departamental quality leader
I am a global quality leader
I am a quality initiative leader
Other
Not well at all
Extremely well
77%
68%
24%
20%
2%
Which team leads the decisions for manufacturing software solutions?
All respondents have some level of confidence in their ability to overcome production constraints, but just 12% say their confidence level is high. Once supply chain concerns have been resolved, making your production more efficient and maximizing revenue growth by utilizing real-time data analytics can give you better control of your manufacturing processes, ultimately leading to decreased downtime, changeovers, and scrap.
•Real time data for faster corrective actions
•Improvement results tracking and analytics
•Faster root cause analysis
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Learn more about how senior manufacturing executives manage operations and performance, and find out how your organization measures up.
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For more information, check out the SimplyDirect Quality Trends in Product Lifecycle Management Pulse Report.
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For most respondents, improvement activities are focused on supply chain constraints. Once companies obtain and organize their materials, it is important they manage high-performance production issues, aggregate data so they understand their processes, and ultimately address time-loss issues.
Hover over bar chart for more.
12%
39%
37%
12%
4
1
2
3
5
11%
Supply Chain Constraints
Labor shortage Constraints
High-Impact Performance Issues
Diffused Operational Data from Disparate Sources
Time Loss Between Units/Facilities
other
ThingWorx Digital Performance Management offers a better, more impactful way to solve these problems. Click here to learn more about how ThingWorx DPM can empower you to identify, analyze, and improve your bottlenecks to increase efficiency, reclaim lost production hours, and maximize revenue growth.
If your organization could benefit from:
It has stayed Roughly the Same
It has increased somewhat
It has Increased significantly
It has Decreased somewhat
It has Decreased significantly
55
%
Run projects as they are identified
46
%
Improvement results tracking and analytics
40
%
Faster root cause analytics
56
%
No, we run projects as they are identified
44
%
Yes
55%
46%
40%
33%
25%
15%
11%
8%
Real-time data to inform faster corrective actions
improvement results tracking and analytics
faster root cause analysis
improved delivery of process data and work intructions to front-line workers
other
Integrated manual and automated data
role-based views of production
funding
36%
32%
19%
10%
4%
Improvement results tracking and analytics
very low confidence
very high confidence
•Real time data for faster corrective actions
•Improvement results tracking and analytics
•Faster root cause analysis
All respondents have some level of confidence in their ability to overcome production constraints, but just 12% say their confidence level is high. Once supply chain concerns have been resolved, making your production more efficient and maximizing revenue growth by utilizing real-time data analytics can give you better control of your manufacturing processes, ultimately leading to decreased downtime, changeovers, and scrap.
Which team leads the decisions for manufacturing software solutions?
Over a third of respondents don’t know when their next project will begin. By understanding in real-time the impact and priorities of production issues, operations teams can make the case for getting started sooner.
When is the next project slated to begin?