Manufacturing Metrics and KPIs That Matter the Most

Posté 2021-06-03 09:57:22

AT A GLANCE

The manufacturing industry runs with the integration of people, tools, processes, and information. The data generated from each of this facet needs to be quantified and analyzed.
In the manufacturing world, those who know their metrics tend to learn the tricks of the game.
The metrics that matter the most are the ones that help you and your manufacturing company gain essential insights regarding different functionalities and business areas to improve the manufacturing process continuously.
One of the most crucial aspects of knowing and managing manufacturing metrics is being systematic and optimizing the best results.

In any business, it is essential to know and understand your numbers. While this may sound simple, we all know that it is far from that! The numbers or metrics need to be collated, classified, quantified, and analyzed to add value to the business, especially for a multi-pronged industry like manufacturing. The manufacturing metrics are diverse, and each metric has a different value in the entire manufacturing value chain. The cumulative analytics study of a group of these metrics helps the manufacturing companies gauge their performance and form strategies for continuous improvements.

FIGURE 1:Cycle of Continuous Improvement Methodology

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As a manufacturing company, you aim to achieve a higher ROI by a thorough analysis of manufacturing metrics and aligning them with your short-term and long-term business goals. Each of these metrics can serve as the source of truth as it represents a precise measurement of your manufacturing processes either in terms of quality or quantity (and sometimes, both). So, let us take a look at the manufacturing metrics that matter the most and how you can fortify your IT infrastructure to study and derive insights from these metrics.

1.Forecasting of Demand:Market research helps companies gain ideas to make estimates about demand forecasting. Manufacturers’ objective is to gauge the amount and type of raw material they will need for their upcoming business cycle. Planning, supply chain management, and operational alignment can significantly benefit with the help of this metric. It is essential to keep in mind that demands foreshadowing is dependent on external factors and, thus, subject to sudden changes. Take, for example, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Many manufacturers found that their yearly estimate had taken a hit (especially sectors like automobile and luxury consumer goods). On the other hand, the demand for medical equipment and hygiene products increased by several folds all over the world. In such a disruptive scenario, manufacturing companies can benefit from a robust enterprise resource planning system such as the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations that seamlessly enables change management, demand analysis, and order management.

2.Throughput/ Yield in Terms of Units Produced:A manufacturing company’s business efficiency is directly proportional to its yield. Throughput is a metric that measures the average number of units produced in a particular amount of time (other coefficients being per machine, per production line, or facility). The correct yield information helps manufacturers gauge their performances accurately, address bottlenecks, and design plans for improvements.

63%

of manufacturing executives plan to get more out of what they already have invested within their manufacturing and supply chain network.

Source: Accenture

3.Inventory Turnover:An inventory is the mirror of a manufacturing companies’ performance- after all, knowing how many times an inventory is sold or used up in a particular timeframe is the measure of knowing its success in the market. Thus decision-makers in the manufacturing industry need to analyze the turnover data of their inventories. To expedite the analysis and avoid data mismanagement, manufacturers can invest in an automated ERP system that can track the inventory data in real-time and facilitate seamless coordination between multiple stakeholders.

4.Quality Analysis:The quality of your product is the final truth. Thus, it is essential to know your quality metrics- this includes monitoring and documenting raw material quality, supplier’s quality incoming, random quality checks at manufacturing plants, and packaging quality, so forth.

5.Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE):Be it single equipment or the entire production line, knowing effectiveness is essential to attain timely yield that matches the quality and quantity requirements. This metric is recognized by the manufacturing industry worldwide as one the most important to assess agility, downtime, and overall production quality.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP and BI Helps in Tracking and Management of Your Quality Metrics in Manufacturing

The metrics above and many others in manufacturing come in the form of humongous amounts of data generated through multiple sources and are subject to many changes. So how does one democratize this data? By creating a data pool, the answer is a single source of truth for multiple manufacturing metrics that can help companies track, manage, and analyze the data against their KPIs.

FIGURE 2:Role of Sophisticated ERP in Managing Manufacturing

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Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP and BI essentially optimize your IT infrastructure to systematically allow real-time data access, multi-level visibility, and artificial intelligence-backed insight generation. You can visualize and track your manufacturing metrics’ progress and get a cumulative progress cognizance of your production line.

For every manufacturing company, metrics are the quintessential sources of truth. However, how you view these metrics, how accurate your information is, and how you leverage it will decide your manufacturing company’s success.

Key Takeaways:

Every company needs to reinvent its best practices with the help of manufacturing metrics for a profitable business.
Investing in a fortified IT infrastructure to track and manage manufacturing metrics is the need of the hour for manufacturing companies.

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