Manufacturers Struggle to Turn Data Into Insight | Techonomy

Manufacturers Struggle to Turn Data Into Insight | Techonomy: "Let's tone down the hype about the Industrial Internet of Things. While the concept shows promise--building smart machines that use sensors and Internet connectivity to improve performance and catch problems--the far more pressing opportunity is learning to make better use of the mountains of data that factories already generate each year, data that manufacturers today often discard after a production run or store unexamined.

I recently visited an auto plant that is facing enormous pressure to reduce defects in a critical component. For each part produced, sensors at a single machine measure 50,000 data points looking for defects, while other machines capture x-ray and heat treatment data. Separate databases track supplier data and quality data.

Despite all that data, too many defective parts escape detection and get installed into vehicles. The plant manager wants to identify correlations within these heterogeneous sets of data, but lacks the tools to collect, condition, and analyze the information."



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