Data as a Platform & Future Manufacturing Intelligence

Data is the new oil. I’m sure this is not the first time you’ve heard this phrase. But it certainly will not be the last one. If I keep an oil paradigm, data is just like crude. It is very valuable, but it unrefined. it cannot be used. Crude has to be changed into gas, chemicals, plastic, etc to become really useful. The same is for data – it must be analyzed, cleaned, linked and refined to be used for decision making and bring value.

Data as a Platform is a very important trend to watch. Mary Meeker of KPCB gives a very interesting perspective on this trend in her last annual KPCB presentation – Internet Trends 2016.

I captured few snippets from her slides to highlight some interesting data points. The first one is about cost of data storage vs size of data we accumulate from multiple sources.

The Data was mentioned as one of the most important sources of global Internet growth. The next big wave here is to leverage the unlimited connectivity and storage to collect, aggregate, correlate and interpreter all sources of information to improve our lives and enable enterprise to operate more efficiently.

According to the presentation, the evolution of Data Platform is moving into its 3rd wave of collective mass data intelligence. This stage will characterized by an increased ability to use data for decision making as well as a source of organization wisdom.

Yesterday in my blog I mentioned Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk speaking about making data free and disconnected from applications. Read more here. If you think about it in a perspective of mass data intelligence, you can see how engineering information extracted from multiple data sources can become a source of organizational intelligence.

Organization wide analytic platforms is an interesting opportunity. However, it made me think about something bigger – global manufacturing intelligence. Think about the opportunity to bring a giant manufacturing systems that can connect global system records about components, bill of materials, supply chain, manufacturing resources, inventories, work orders, etc. The storage is cheap and the ability to collect the information and set it separate from application is here today. It can give a huge potential for future manufacturing intelligence.

What is my conclusion? The future of manufacturing competitive intelligence will be directly dependent on the ability of manufacturing companies to use data. The era of local ERP and PLM systems is near the end. There is no company in the world that can afford to work in a disconnected mode. The future manufacturing platforms will be dependent on the ability to integrate all systems of records to drive product data intelligence. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Want to learn more about PLM? Check out my new PLM Book website.

Disclaimer: I’m co-founder and CEO of openBoM developing cloud based bill of materials and inventory management tool for manufacturing companies, hardware startups and supply chain.

Picture credit (c) Can Stock Photo