Chicago — All that data being collected as part of Industry 4.0 is important well beyond the factory floor.
Michael Rothschild, the founder and chairman of consultants Profit Velocity Solutions, says the information about how many parts are being made per hour, by using a set amount of energy and specific amount of resin, can be combined in some outstanding financial information.
As part of "time-based" data analytics, Rothschild is encouraging processors to combine production and profit numbers to find exactly what their profit is per machine hour and create business plans around those numbers, not just sheer sales or output.
"If you know where there is profit to be made, you can then price competitively to get more competitive volume," Rothschild said at the Plastics Financial Summit, Oct. 24 in Chicago.
Rothschild said much of his work is proprietary, but the data available through the analysis is being used by molders who want to better focus their sales and production numbers, as well as by investors looking at the untapped potential within an acquisition.
Often an in-depth study will find that the best return on capital equipment per hour is not the "value-added" part in a niche competitive area, but rather a lower-cost part that can be turned out in a highly automated, high-volume production.
"You can't fix everything, but you can look at how you can speed up performance," he said.
