May 15, 2025
From their earliest incarnation, manufacturers have aspired to be data-driven decision makers, closely tracking inputs and outputs to make calculated adjustments and rational plans. They have always understood the importance of being objective, thinking empirically, and approaching improvement and optimization through a scientific lens. Despite all their best efforts, however, one vital resource has always been lacking: the data.
Manufacturers over time have succeeded at collecting more data from more sources into one place, yet gaps remain. Data either gets trapped in unrelated silos, moves slowly between sources, or takes error-prone manual processes to access. As a result, manufacturers have always had some of the data, but never in history have they had all the data. Until now.
Technological advancements from IoT that captures data throughout the factory floor to ERP that brings all information and functionality onto one platform, are redefining manufacturing’s relationship with data. Collecting, integrating, and analyzing data has never been easier or more insightful with tech tools that are now available to any manufacturer.
With these tools, data moves seamlessly from its source to decision makers. “We have IoT sensors tied into machinery and computers that can collect all the data for us,” says Guide Technologies Solutions Consultant Kyle Meyers. “Then we have advanced analytics to take the raw data, relate it to the business context, and translate it into meaningful data points. This allows you to analyze and visualize when something’s out of tolerance.”
Choosing wisely has never been more important as tariffs and trade negotiations create widespread uncertainty. During dynamic times like these, manufacturers must rely on finance to forecast and fortify the company’s financial position. Likewise, they must look closely at operations for opportunities to get more efficient, innovative, and agile. Consequential decisions must be made right now—but with analytics, the chances of choosing correctly go up significantly.
Consider how operations and finance both improve with analytics tools enabling data-driven decision making.
Turn Operations Into a Fine-Tuned Machine
Operations managers reference streams of data all day, from inventory consumption to production speed. Now, with the advent of automation, they can spend less time finding, organizing, and processing data since those processes can all run independently. Instead, they can focus on using data to optimize operations in large and small ways. With the assistance of powerful analytics tools and synthesized data sources, they can find those opportunities more quickly, confidently, and consistently.
Some of the questions that analytics could answer include:
- Exactly how long does a process take from beginning to end?
- What are all the costs involved with producing a product?
- How closely are people following policies and procedures?
- Where could planning and scheduling improve?
By replacing assumptions with answers and swapping out intuition for evidence, operational improvements become inevitable. Decision makers clearly know what’s working and what’s not. Even more importantly, they have the data and tools to eliminate the negatives and extend the positives.
Increase the Focus and Fitness of Finance
Financial professionals are no strangers to data-driven decision making, and more data flows into Finance than perhaps any other department. Analytics tools make it possible to manage this avalanche of information, ensuring that it’s complete and accurate without the need for laborious manual consolidations and validations. In turn, that makes more data available for analysis, resulting in a broader and deeper array of insights available in less time with little to no effort. No longer needing to find data, request updates, or make do with information gaps, finance professionals can turn their attention to all the financial opportunities and obstacles that lie ahead.
Let analytics handle inquiries like these:
- How consistently is the correct material being issued?
- Were the overhead rates calculated accurately?
- Which customers and vendors are most reliable?
- How is profitability trending?
Enabling data-driven decision making in all departments, including operations and elsewhere, has the result of supplying the Finance department with even more data, giving them a real-time, in-depth perspective into organizational health on which they can base every financial planning decision. Nothing can guarantee perfect financial results—but nothing makes them more accessible than analytics.
“We were able to bring a company from the red to profitability through a combination of operational efficiencies like quicker lead time and better delivery processes” says Meyers. “But also, thanks to deeper financial insights like knowing which products were profitable or not.” The difference maker was analytics.
Guide Technologies: Manufacturing Technology to Empower Decision Makers
We specialize in manufacturing technology such as Infor CloudSuite Industrial, an end-to-end ERP platform built specifically for manufacturers and is easily personalized. Through a robust and secure API platform, we can incorporate many common software packages providing a unified business experience. In addition to ingesting data from all available sources, CloudSuite Industrial comes with powerful yet accessible analytics solutions. Users have everything they need to enhance operations, finance, and so much more, all within a single platform that makes every department stronger while coordinating them all into a sum that exceeds the parts.
Guide Technologies helps manufacturers implement and enhance manufacturing technology, but we also show clients how to make the most of those tools to solve unique problems and fulfill strategic objectives. Our team draws on decades of experience to help users get the data they want and need to enlighten every decision they must make.
Make data-driven decision making the norm: Contact Guide Technologies.
