Why is there so much talk about the Power of Data? Because if there is currently an essential task for any graphic company -regardless of its size and investment capacity- that task is called digitization. Digitization is a process of constant evolution within the business dynamics that affects all areas and processes involved in the operation of the company’s activity. Digitizing would be, among other things, synonymous with automating, systematizing and controlling the data that make up said activity.
One of the main objectives that must mark the success -so to speak- of any digitization process is the control of the data that the company manages under a standard of good quality of the data itself. Understanding by quality, the correlation that exists between the figure and the reality that it represents and transmits. The good quality of the data provided by any of the departments of the graphic company is related to the quality of execution of the production and management processes. A well-performed, well-designed and well-informed process in the management system necessarily results in good data.
In some departments it is much “easier” to achieve quality data than in others. For example, data from the finance or administration department may be easier to obtain than data from the manufacturing process, where multiple processes are often combined in relatively tight schedules.
As I said before, one of the keys to improvement in a digitization process is to achieve a well-drawn and informed process flow gear in the management system that makes quality data possible. This apparently simple task becomes a workhorse that causes many companies real headaches, but it is an essential, continuous battle and, moreover, it is not solved exclusively with the implementation of technology (software and hardware) but with relationship processes. and interrelation of flows both between people and between installed machinery.
On the other hand, the data that flows in the management system must be managed correctly and with the appropriate technology so that they can be viewed in a useful time and analyzed by the management and production team, in such a way that the end of that data management process are corrective actions, if necessary. Let’s say that one of the objectives of digitalization would be to obtain a fixed, real-time and quality photo of each of the business areas to see if it is necessary to retouch any part of that image that it offers us in order to improve productivity and the profitability of the business.
Thanks to software technology and its universalization – not only large companies can have access to it as was the case years ago – today it is possible that many graphic companies can have access to this digital resource through what has been called dashboards ( business intelligence). This resource is, to put it in some way, one of the peaks to be reached in the digitization mountain range.
Dashboards allow us to visualize any data that flows in the system with tools that allow analysis and measurement in real time and in a very friendly and simple way in terms of its usability. Through this ability to measure and analyze in real time, the data goes from being a simple figure to becoming knowledge that, necessarily under the control of the professional team, is transformed into flows of improvement, control and adjustment of the processes involved in graphic business.
To conclude, I would invite all professionals in the printing and graphic communication industry to appreciate the great importance that management systems have in digitization and I would encourage them to develop a culture of technology in accordance with the needs of the company. of the 21st century.
Taken from Palmart