For years we’ve been hearing about Big Data. Now the call is to make the data visible and actionable. Easier said than done. Remember when we wanted our music, phone and camera on one device instead of having to carry multiple devices? Data Visualization is that desirable right now and it is challenging to do well. Here’s why:
Challenge #1: Properly defining the question that you want the data to answer
In the world of supply chain the leaders typically want all of the data summed up into Good News or Bad News. For example, at the end of a monthly S&OP meeting one of the key questions that gets asked is Can Sales continue to promote product A? For Operations to give a Yes or No answer, a timeframe has to be defined. Once the timeframe is agreed, then Operations can answer the question by building a heat map for every product or family of product (if that makes the data more manageable). The heat map then can be given to Sales at the end of the monthly S&OP.
Challenge #2: Cleaning up dirty data
This is where most organizations get stuck. Cleaning up the data is tedious work but it has to be done or the metric is useless. Take heart, sometimes identifying and fixing the issues with the data is meaningful on its own. Also, think about what decisions that dirty data is influencing on a daily basis or the time that it takes to explain variances every month.
Challenge #3: Developing graphics that tell the story at a glance with the push of a button
You have to work with your audience to determine what graphics work for them. I find that it’s best to create something and then get feedback. This step can be a bit of trial and error but once you have the design locked in, then you need a skilled developer to automate the report out. The end users really appreciate if they can easily run the reports and generate the charts and graphs on-demand with the push of button. If it is complicated or requires many manual key strokes to generate the charts and graphs then that report out will not be sustainable.
Challenge #4: Making the data actionable
Congratulations on making it to this step. You have put so much effort into getting here and now all you have to do is summarize thousands or even millions of data points across multiple parameters in a way that helps the receivers of the results to take action. If you can monetize the results by showing costs or savings that will give direction to the receivers of the output to either keep doing what they’ve been doing or give them incentive to make a change. Or, if you can summarize the data into categories that is meaningful to the audience then they will know where to focus their time and energy to make improvements.
Here is an example of a chart that answers the question: How good is my schedule? This chart in addition to five other supporting charts can be generated on-demand in 30 seconds.
At Profit Point, we work with our clients to overcome the challenges with Data Visualization and develop Meaningful Supply Chain Metrics. To learn more about our supply chain services, contact us at www.profitpt.com or at 610-645-5557 and we will be happy to assist you.