Despite electronics manufacturers' leading role in the ongoing data revolution, a recent report found that those companies often struggle to incorporate data into their own operations.
An Iyno Advisors analysis, titled "Capitalizing on Big Data from Products," found that the current IT infrastructure in fast-moving industries generally makes it difficult to rely on data for company decisions.
A majority of high tech companies surveyed by the Massachusetts consulting firm said that they did not have access to reliable product information, while nearly three-quarters believed that their product data is less than 80 percent accurate.
More than half of respondents said that data on product genealogy, root causes and engineering changes "takes weeks to obtain or is not available at all."
Read more: The new IT infrastructure.
In addition, the report said that most companies struggle with external data, which hinders the electronics industry due to its complicated supply chain.
Some companies, however, leveraged analytics to improve their decision-making processes and product performance.
Participants that showed improved performance in most metrics were far more likely to be able access data in minutes rather than weeks.
"When we ship a hundred thousand products a day, taking several days to root cause a problem is unacceptable," said Dell strategist Michael Shepherd, whose company implemented a data analytics system called SupportAssist.
The report offered several recommendations for businesses looking to make better use of data, including automating data quality to providing access to suppliers. Companies will also need effective tools to sift through data and identify trends, analysts said.
"Unify the data so that suppliers and different functions of the company are seeing the same data sets," added Dell's Dustin Bosl. "The supply chain can then naturally align around operational and quality improvement opportunities."
