Insights from decision trees and other basic analytic techniques show that you don’t always need complex analytics to solve business problems and add value. This was the message from Dr. James (Jim) Foster, Director of Research and Process Development, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), at last month’s inaugural IE Group ‘Manufacturing Analytics
Tag: manufacturing
I led an analytical culture track at the SAS Global Forum Executive Conference last month in Washington, DC. I talked with leaders in fields as diverse as healthcare, chemical manufacturing and government. Although these organizations have very different operating models, their challenges, comments and questions were similar. They all recognized
Analytics gives us not just the ability but the imperative to separate our planning activities into two distinct segments – detailed planning that leads to budgets in support of execution, and high-level, analytic-enabled business/scenario planning. My critique of Control Towers in this blog last time led me not only to
After decades of trying to "manage" and "control" quality, manufacturers continue to struggle with consistently achieving quality excellence. To conquer the realities of today's marketplace and achieve quality excellence, manufacturers need to adopt an analytic approach to quality. The basic objective of manufacturers hasn't changed since the beginning - produce
With the increasing emphasis on responsiveness, resiliency, flexibility and agility, I suppose it was only a matter of time before the “agile” concept caught up with strategy itself. While I may have hinted at this idea four years ago in two of my earliest posts for the Value Alley, “Strategy
It is always important to continue to sell the value of analytics within your organization, especially to your leaders. Usually, these type of results are delivered via reports, dashboards, or emails. However did you know that analytics: Detects when expensive machinery like electrical submersible pumps (ESP) or oil platforms need maintenance before
From Gartner to IDC to the trade press, the watchwords in the supply chain for rest of this decade appear to be “resiliency” and “responsiveness”. It’s not going to be about promotion-based pull-through, and it’s most definitely not going to be about channel incentive-based push-through. What it’s going to be
Bridging the Rift between Dev and Ops As a member of the Product Marketing team at SAS, I spend a good part of my time researching – analyst reports, industry journals, blogs, social channels – and listening to what our customers are saying. Early last spring I began noticing the term
Since mead is becoming popular in movies (such as Thor and The Hobbit), and even as an emerging industry in real life ... what better example to use for some SAS graphs! And who knows - this might even turn you into a mead drinker! But first, to get you in the
“The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.” ~ Warren G. Bennis The promise of digital manufacturing is drawing closer to
From what I've seen, the energy industries appear to be at a tipping point in their interest and adoption of advanced analytics. If there's any question about how analytics can be used to benefit these industries, consider a few examples:. How much demand for electricity will there be and when?
The National Academy of Engineering identified fourteen "Grand Challenges for Engineering" that must be addressed in order to achieve a sustainable, economically robust, and politically stable future. (see the full list here) The challenges are a call-to-action for solutions to some of the most pressing issues in the 21st century:
"It's a floor wax, and a dessert topping" - this pretty much describes SAS/Graph! (bonus points if you know where this quote came from!) Some people think of SAS as just a quality control tool. Others think of it as just a sales & marketing tool. And yet others think
Once I was chairing a conference where the speaker was explaining the business model for the licensing of the Peanuts cartoon characters - Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the gang - and how all that works when it comes to the balloons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (in case you are wondering,
In Amsterdam, harnessing the power of the (data) tide With more than 100 km of canals and 1,500 bridges, dikes and dams, Amsterdam has long been in tune with the tides. Today, as an economic tide tugs at Europe and many regions, organizations are coping with a flood of data
I have been privileged to have had the opportunity to contribute to the recently published, “Positioned – Strategic Workforce Planning that gets the Right Person in the Right Job”, co-edited by Rob Tripp, Workforce Planning Manager at Ford Motor Company. The list of contributors is a Who’s Who of strategic
Wouldn’t it be great if we could predict the future? As a kid, I liked to write sci-fi stories. I wrote stories about what the year 2000 would be like: flying cars, robots, and talking dogs. OK, I won’t admit what year I was actually writing these stories, but back
What were we blogging about last year at this time? Some of our bloggers were attending a leadership conference in Singapore and others were attending an analytics conference at Disney. It may surprise you to know we were already talking about high-performance analytics. In fact, we were talking about high-performance
Last year I was given an iPad. At the time I was rather ho-hum about my new toy, but my fourteen-year-old daughter was ecstatic about it. I now know why. Today, I am writing this blog post from my iPad and I am lost when I leave it at home.
Today, more companies are offering more products in more markets in more currencies to more customer segments than ever before. The result? An exponential explosion in data covering virtually every aspect of the organization: sales, marketing, finance, manufacturing, legal, HR, and more. Unquestionably, the era of “big data” has arrived.
In my role at SAS I have the great fortune to meet with business intelligence and analytic (BI&A) teams all across the United States to share and discuss best practices and pain points, particularly around the ability to execute and operationalize insight internally and externally throughout the organization. In these
It's true. "Big data" can be a problem and an opportunity. Many organizations have struggled to manage, much less profit from, the deluge. In 2012, look for big data to spur demand for big data analytics. New developments in high-performance computing as well as increased demand for visualization and text
I was privileged to attend the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) Board of Directors meeting in Washington D.C. recently. Attended by some 300 senior executives of American Manufacturing companies, it was like a who’s-who in brand names anyone would recognize. NAM is a very big influencer of public policy on
The SAS Power Series Tour had its most recent stop in the heart of Silicon Valley, San Jose. This gave me another chance to test my hypothesis that firms in the Valley are not big users of analytics. My theory goes that high-tech firms are much more focused on creating
Summer has almost come to a close – and thank goodness! Up here in the Northeast, we’ve been subjected to tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and earthquakes. I’ve been waiting for the locusts to descend! And outside of dodging hail and charging my laptop with my car’s cigarette lighter when we lost
A lot of ink is being spilled over Steve Jobs leaving Apple. Okay here is a little more. Some of my younger friends and colleagues are surprised I have purchased an iPad. Apparently, to younger folk, most persons of my advanced years seem technologically challenged. But I learned a valuable
How do you know when you’ve given a great presentation? When someone remembers it a year later and writes a blog post about it. That great presentation in this case was given by Erik DaRosa, Director of Global FP&A for Avon, who spoke at the IE Group’s Financial Forecasting Conference this time last year
There is a lot of talk hither and yon about a “double-dip” recession. Not at all uncommon when you consider past recessions. Let’s take a look at some data from the June 2011 survey of senior financial executives from the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI to dig into the double dip theories. MAPI
At the first panel discussion of the Premier Business Leadership Series on Tuesday morning, host Mark Jeffries introduced attendees to a new feature - the Clikapad wireless voting keypad. During each panel presentation throughout the conference, audience participation will be facilitated with polls via the keypads. Jeffries started the first panel discussion with this
Thousands of people have participated in this year's Applying Business Analytics Webinar Series, and now is your chance to get in on it too! Whether you are able to join in live on July 20 or view later on demand, you'll want to catch the complimentary Webinar, “Text Analytics –