Manufacturing covers a broad range of industries, but no matter what segment you find yourself in, the goals are the same—produce high-quality products in a cost-effective and timely manner.

Whether you’re a process engineer or production manager, every bit of efficiency counts. From fine-tuning processes to ensuring quality control, your day revolves around maximizing output, streamlining operations, and boosting ROI.

So, how do you know if your current software is helping you reach the level of efficiency needed to boost your operations—and ultimately your bottom line? If your current solution feels like a puzzle of disconnected data, it might be time for a change. But with so many options available, choosing the right fit for your operation can be overwhelming.

This is the first in a series of blogs that will take a closer look at the operational performance management (OPM) category of industrial manufacturing software systems. In this first blog, we’ll focus on how an OPM enhances operational efficiency and how it can help you achieve your business goals.

What is an OPM Platform? 

An OPM platform falls into the productivity software category and is designed to help companies keep track of how well their manufacturing processes are running.  

It does this by collecting real-time data from various parts of the production line and delivering important KPIs and metrics such as overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), product quality, and employee productivity.  

An OPM platform goes beyond just tracking OEE and might provide things like electronic logs, quality tracking, statistical process control (SPC), and shift handover. 

Depending on the size of the facility and the complexity of the process, an OPM might also ingest and integrate data from multiple sources across the operation, including supply chain, quality management, maintenance, and more.  

Why choose an OPM platform? 

Once data is collected, the OPM solution makes that data useful to stakeholders across the organization. The OPM helps increase awareness of production floor performance and streamlines inspections. It can also play an integral role in an organization’s digital transformation by replacing paper forms.  

In addition, an OPM can provide advanced performance analytics and root-cause analysis, delivering insights quickly via role-based dashboards and other intuitive visualizations. These tools and insights help organizations better understand overall performance and how to improve it.  

How do I know if an OPM platform is the right fit for my organization?  

Choosing the right system boils down to understanding your organization’s goals and challenges. If your team struggles with visibility into overall performance across multiple departments or locations, an OPM solution could be beneficial.  

By providing real-time monitoring, analytics, reporting, and performance dashboards, an OPM platform provides a comprehensive view of overall plant performance. This holistic approach enables more strategic, data-driven decisions that drive continuous improvement. 

Summary 

Having the right tools in place helps your team make informed decisions based on real-time insights—avoiding bottlenecks and reducing inefficiencies.

Our solution, Ekho OPM, gives you a big-picture view by gathering data from all parts of the operation. This enables you to pinpoint areas that need improvement and empowers you to take targeted actions that increase productivity.

Stay tuned for part two of this blog series, where we take a closer look at tracking OEE with an OPM platform and how an OPM platform goes beyond just calculating OEE.

Curious about how Ekho OPM can help your team navigate complex operational data in a more meaningful and straightforward way? Get the product sheet or book a demo.