Impact of Data Analytics on Manufacturing Industries

Nitika Jain, njain980316@gmail.com, Pre-Final Year Student, Bangalore Institute of Technology.

Afra B.I, afrabambaikar14@gmail.com, Pre-Final Year Student, Bangalore Institute of
Technology.
Divya Rani, rdivya864@gmail.com, Pre-Final Year Student, Bangalore Institute of Technology.
Davy George Valavi,davygeorge@gmail.com, Associate Professor, Bangalore Institute of
Technology.

Abstract

Past few years have witnessed an increased focus on reduction of waste and variability
in production processes of various sectors of manufacturing. Lean and six sigma
concepts helped the organizations to achieve those objectives. The recent slowing down
in manufacturing sector induced the manufacturing companies to concentrate more on
operational excellence thereby offsetting any slow growth in demand. In today’s
technology driven business environment big data analytics stands as a key driver in
transforming traditional manufacturing facilities into highly optimized manufacturing
facilities. The availability of large volumes of data has triggered the analytic revolution
leading to the formation of useful trends and patterns, which upon analysis enhances
the current manufacturing process. A more detailed approach can be employed in
manufacturing by using big data analytics going beyond lean and six sigma
concepts. This paper focuses on the advantages and trends in the applications of data
analytics in manufacturing.

Key words: Big data, Analytics, operational excellence.

Introduction
Manufacturing can be described as a 5M system which consists of materials, Machines,
Methods, Measurements and Modelling. The manufacturing industry has come a long
way from manual craft industries which only yielded limited number of products
despite its tedious and slow production processes [1]. As per the current trends with the
application of concepts like lean manufacturing and six sigma the manufacturing sector
has gone a long way since then. Now is the time for Big data analytics.

Data analytics refers to the practical application of statistics and other mathematical
tool to business data in order to asses and improves any production process. It enables
manufacturers to segment the production process and supply chain [2]. Data analysis
enables to predict the demand for a product with help of customer behavior. By utilizing
Big Data analytics tools, manufacturing companies can make the most of their machine,
production, and supply chain data and significantly raise their productivity and
efficiency
 In today's industries, Big Data acts as one of the key drivers of productivity and
efficiency for manufacturers. It enables manufacturers to en-route on a granular
approach in improving the already existing process. As manufacturing is an asset-
intensive industry, improvement in one asset performance leads to overall increase in
the productivity of the industry. On the other hand, avoiding asset breakdowns
minimize the industry's losses. Hence data analytics plays an important role in
improving asset performance and efficiency.
Big data also helps in Streamlining the manufacturing process. By the help of big data
manufacturers can reasonably and economically predict demand for customization in
products by seeing the past data and analyzing the pattern in their behavior. Big data
also helps in enabling Process Customization [3].
The use of advanced analytics reveals further opportunities to increase yield, even in
the manufacturing operations that are considered best in class. With data analytics being
applied on the right systems at the right place, downtime can be reduced drastically
which increases productivity resulting in increase in sales.
From the above statements it is seen that big data analytics in manufacturing can be
used to make smart decisions which allows industries to be more productive and
efficient than their current situation.
This paper focuses on the current trends of the application of big data analytics in
manufacturing sector. Also, the potential future trends of the data analytics in
manufacturing is discussed.

Operational Excellence in manufacturing

Operational excellence is the relentless pursuit of finding ways to improve performance
and profitability. It is a mindset not a methodology It advented by the arrival of concepts
like lean and six sigma in the manufacturing industries [4]. The areas of manufacturing
that are generally overlooked by the organization that can give a dramatic boost in the
productivity, can also be detected by the use of these techniques. Operational excellence
has driven dramatic increases in industrial productivity since the dawn of the Industrial
Revolution.

Productivity concept - The productivity of a manufacturing process is related to how

effectively input resources in the process are transformed into economic results for the
service provider and value for its customers [5].
Productivity of manufacturing organizations is measured in quantitative units of input
and output with relatively the same quality.
In economic sense Productivity is defined as the ratio of output and input of a process.
Productivity=(output/input)

The most widely used operational excellence Metrologies in manufacturing are:

1) Lean manufacturing focuses on systematically eliminating waste in a production

process. It focuses only on the parameters that add value to the product manufactured.
The key principles include improving the quality of the products and services,
eliminating anything that doesn't add value, and reducing overall costs.
Lean focuses on bottleneck of any process in order to affect its improvement.
Most commonly detected wastes (In traditional lean manufacturing) are
Overproduction, waiting time or idle time, Transport, Motion, Over-processing,
Inventory, Defects etc.

2) Six Sigma is a set of tools and techniques that are designed to improve business
processes which will result in a better manufacturing practices that have minimum
waste involved and maximum productivity. The goal of six sigma is to reduce variation
in any process and in turn increase customer satisfaction. A six-sigma business will not
produce more than 3.4 defects in a million products manufactured. Most crucial step
used in this method is DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analysis, Improvement, Control).

3) Kaizen means "continuous improvement" in Japanese. It is used to implement

positive ongoing changes in the workplace.
Its initial assumptions are that any process can be improved, and team work is essential
for any process to see success. When small changes are applied consistently, they will
compound over time and produce big results. Many businesses have used kaizen to help
them increase employee productivity, cut costs, and improve the customer experience.

BIG DATA ANALYTICS

In the past few years due to advancement in technology in fields of data generation,
transmission and collection, an explosion of large volumes of data has been observed
in every field. To deal with this voluminous data many techniques are required, data
analytics being one of the major techniques used.
Data Analytics is the process of scrutinizing data sets to draw inferences about the
information they contain, with the help of advanced systems and software. The raw data
is examined and depending on the conclusions the decisions are made. This helps in
deriving valuable insights through cleaning, transforming, modeling and analyzing the
collected data. Data Analytics method helps in providing insights of patterns, trends,
areas of inefficiency, and potential risk to manufacturers and help improve
manufacturing processes, production control and business processes [6].
This method can be used to analyze data in various fields such as genomics,
neuroscience, economics, finance etc. It is the next frontier for innovation that will
provide competitive advantage to the organizations.
Two types of data are focused upon when it comes to analysis those are:
1) Traditional enterprise data, machine generated or data stemming from weblogs,
sensors and logs.
2) Social data [8]
As mass of information is being generated from this data, there is concern regarding its
storage, analysis and processing as well as ownership and security.

Big data is characterized by the following attributes:

1) VOLUME: It focuses on the large number of data generated and stored and its
analysis i.e. how to effectively analyze data which may include a variety of
dynamically collected data in different forms and historical log data
 accumulated for a long time. Only the useful information should be collected
from all the data and analyzed effectively for decision making.
2) VELOCITY: It denotes the frequency or speed by which data is generated and
delivered. Relevant information should be exchanged at high speed so that
managers, operators and engineers are able to work together based on a quick
feedback in a data driven environment. This requires manufacturers to process
the data collected in a timely manner as to adapt themselves to these time
sensitive changes.
3) VARIETY: This tells us about the various sources data is generated from, either
a structured or unstructured format. The data collected is not always numeric.
Identifying and categorizing the data into different formats allows the
manufacturers to analyze and utilize them more efficiently.
4) VERACITY: It highlights the importance of quality of data and trust in the
source of data. Due to the large volume of data there is noise data mixed with
the useful information. Hence, careful deduction should be made to decide
which information is accurate and up-to date and which information is noise
and outdated.
5) VALUE: This gives us the economic importance of the data being analyzed [7].

Big Data is a cultural, technological and scholarly phenomenon that revolves around
technology and analysis. There are many situations where the sources from which data
has been collected are heterogeneous and autonomous and techniques like excel may
be inefficient compared to more advanced techniques.
Big Data has various applications in healthcare, educational, transportation and
government industries as well as banking sectors and manufacturing industries.
In this paper we shall see the impact of big data on manufacturing industries.
The data being generated in the various sectors is as shown below. On analyzing this
data we can know the areas of improvement.

Chart 1: Data stored across various sectors in the US

Source: McKinsey and Company, https://www.slideshare.net/McK_CMSOForum/customer-journey-
analytics-and-big-data/4-McKinsey_Company_3Value_potential_of

Economist Intelligence Study commissioned by Wipro – 'Manufacturing and the Data

Conundrum' where 86% survey respondents report major increases in collection of data
and 90% respondents saying their companies have mature data analysis capabilities for
many manufacturing processes. The survey is as shown below
Chart 2: Survey conducted by WIPRO
Source: Jayant Prabhu, Big Data- The Alchemist in Manufacturing.

Current trends of Analytics in manufacturing industry

The primary application of advance analytics is to asses and improve practices. In
manufacturing industries, data analysis is used for identifying the relation between
different discrete inputs or process data, and then optimize the outcome factors that
have a great impact on the yield. Many global manufacturers have sufficient amount of
real time shop-floor data and also are capable of conducting a sophisticate statistical
assessment [9]. They are using the previously stored data sets, aggregating them and
analyze them for better insight.
Chart 3: Analytical Techniques used in Manufacturing.
Source: Eric Auschitzky, Markus Hammer, Agesan Rajagopaul. How Big Data Can
Improve Manufacturing

Most manufacturing industries assume a constant equipment availability, constant

availability of raw materials and also constant optimal performance however in most of
the cases the above statement does not hold true. In order to achieve transparency, the
manufacturing industry has to transform into predictive manufacturing. This is possible
by the use of big data analytics. Today, predictive analytics has become a valuable
science and tool for manufacturers. Hence big data analytics can be used to analyze all
the data that has been accumulated in order to be able to predict the demand accurately
so that there is no over production or under production.

Earlier big data was primarily deployed by the big business firm who could afford the
technology used for collecting and analyzing the data, but due to the unbelievably fast
pace evolution of the big data analysis, small scale enterprises are also relying on this
for an intelligent business insight [10].

Sometimes due to the availability of large pool of data which can be unstructured, it
becomes a challenge to find the accurate solution, but even with such roadblocks, big
data is not only offering huge amount of business but is also considered as one of the
pillars of the manufacturing advancement in future [11]. According to Forbes, 53% of
the companies out there in the world are using big data analytics, up from 15% in 2015.
Big companies like Amazon, Starbucks, General Electric and also Fast-Moving
Consumer Goods (FMCG) sectors have suffused data analysis in their system [12].
Following are big data analysis trends that will be the talk of manufacturing world in
2019 and beyond: -

1)Production Quality:
Big data allows companies to leverage Lean and Six Sigma Programs that help reduce
waste and variability in production processes. Producing multifaceted products like
chemicals or pharmaceuticals can have broad ranges of variations accounting for the
amount of complexities involved. By using big data and advanced analytics,
manufacturers can examine key performance indicators that affect overall production
quality.
2)Demand Forecast:
Many produced goods have seasonal demands. Big data has made estimating quantity
of raw materials demanded (according to different variables like export and import
rates, availability of resources, government initiatives, etc.) more precise so
manufacturers can produce products in anticipation of demands; leading to price
stability and continuous growth.

3) Enhanced Customer Service:

Analyzing market trends and customer demands from collected data can result in an
enhanced experience for customers.

4)Plant Performance:
Typical manufacturing plants have multiple areas or machinery that work in harmony
to produce goods. With big data, manufacturers can intelligently identify any issue-
causing areas that are affecting plant performance and make necessary restitutions
before the issues becomes too serious; avoiding costly downtown and production
inefficiencies.
Predictive maintenance (PdM)- PdM’s concept came up when the industries grew out
of high costs due to unscheduled downtime that includes cost of yield loss and
maintenance in addition to lost production time. Practitioners initially thought of
leveraging univariate FD systems to detect trends in particular variable to
approximately determine remaining useful life of particular component. Scheduled
maintenance could then be adjusted to reduce the occurrence of unscheduled downtime.
However, this could not be possible owing to the the complexity and variability in a
semiconductor manufacturing process. So, they are generally not optimal and
maintainable for PdM. The most effective way of using PdM could be to develop
predictive models using off-line MVA techniques. Data Analytics could help PdM to
be possible.

Future Trends of Data analytics in manufacturing

The future of data analytics is enormous with some of the enhancements being
implemented currently and the others on the horizon. With the massive explosion of
generation and collection of data, industries are expected to increase their operational
excellency for increasing their overall productivity and profit of the organization. Some
of the trends expected to be seen in the upcoming few years are:
1) Fast growing IoT Networks:
Predictive manufacturing systems: Demand forecast will take a back seat by the advent
predictive manufacturing. With 'Internet of Things' being incorporated to big data the
essential structures of smart sensor networks and smart machines can be easily set up.
The goal of such a system is to enable machines and systems with “self-aware”
capabilities. The core technology is the smart computational agent that contains smart
software to conduct predictive modeling functionalities.
Greater visibility into big data: IoT will transform every surface into a sensor for data
collection and will provide real-time insights for manufacturers. This will enable them
to improve Production, optimize, operations, and address issues before problems arise.
[13]
2) Dark Data-Dark data in technology is the digital information that is not currently
put to use. It is important to understand that any data unexplored is opportunity lost.
This can impact decision making part of manufacturing in a transforming way. The use
of this in the future will also reduce potential risk to the business. [14]
3) Leveraging Supply Chain for Competitive Advantage-In order for the
Manufacturers to remain competitive they will continue to distance themselves from
price wars by leveraging to new technology that simplifies supply chain management.
A third of over 2,000 industrial companies have digitized their supply chains while
nearly three-quarters expect to by 2020, according to PwC [13].
4) 3D Printing is Making Production Faster and Cheaper-3D printing will help
manufacturers in the process of tooling in (jigs and fixtures) a matter of days rather than
expensive and time-consuming processes. This has already been embraced by
automotive and aerospace industry. This will very soon enter other sectors
manufacturing as well [13].
5) Cloud Manufacturing-It is envisioned that companies in all sectors of
manufacturing will be able to package their resources and know-hows in the Cloud,
making them conveniently available for others through pay-as-you-go, which is also
timely and economically attractive. The future development of CM will face many
challenges in key enabling technologies and concepts [14].

6) Machine Learning-Manufacturer’s adoption of machine learning and analytics to

improve predictive maintenance is predicted to increase 38% in the next five years
according to PwC.
this will require Advanced big data analytics techniques [14].

CONCLUSION
There is an increase in adoption of big data analytics in manufacturing sector. The
integration of analytics in manufacturing operations is clearly visible with the advanced
in Internet of Things, high speed computing and machine learning. A new era of
autonomous manufacturing is about to commence with these revolutionary concepts in
manufacturing intelligence. In coming years, virtually all processes of manufacturing
may be digitally based and highly automated.
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