Rubbish in, Rubbish out
It’s an old phrase, but still relevant in today’s world of Big Data.
There’s a disconnect in manufacturing. Offices are full of employees with licenses to use spreadsheets. I was one a number of years back. Without access to the proper tooling to analyse manufacturing operations, every problem looks like it can, and should, be solved by a spreadsheet. In my case, over many years, I honed my expertise in Microsoft Excel and the code that runs to automate spreadsheets, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).
I’m proud of some of the solutions that I built. Removing the need for a production operator to manually enter 22 digit codes from one system into a form destined for another was helpful and avoided mistakes.
Things got out of hand when we had to leave ‘macros’ to run for 25 minutes on an office PC in order to determine whether the production plan for the upcoming month was achievable.
Industrial manufacturing plants need industrial standard IT systems and solutions to achieve the breakthroughs that come from insights. However, there’s a disconnect – the IT professionals on staff are often tasked with maintaining systems, performing backups, rolling out upgrades, patching security systems and helping out when new users come and go or forget their passwords.
At the core of any analysis is the Database. I would argue that many employees would benefit greatly from an understanding of relational databases. Even knowledge of how powerful these systems can be can unlock enthusiasm and deliver results.
A great way to learn about databases is to take yourself through something simple like Sam’s teach yourself SQL (https://www.amazon.co.uk/SQL-Hours-Sams-Teach-Yourself).
If you can’t build the system you need yourself, it’s the kind of thing that Meteor Software Limited can help with, as part of a proposed new system.
