“We Couldn’t Do Our Jobs Without It” Why MSI Express Relies on Data Share to Drive Progress

Improving inventory management and KPIs

Like many organizations, MSI Express establishes measurable goals to which every team member is held accountable, says Michael Tran, CMMS manager. The team uses Data Share to pull information from Asset Essentials and display it in an easy-to-read format. 

“The access that Data Share provides to our data has a deep impact on our work,” Tran says. “We couldn’t do our jobs without it. It drives our progress.” 

In addition to tracking key performance indicators and measuring team and individual progress, the Data Share dashboard also helps manage inventory. With a quick glance, it’s easy to gauge whether MSI Express is low on inventory items or needs additional inventory at another location.

Simplifying decision-making

With so much information readily available, leaders are able to make informed decisions based on data. For example, the engineering team can use production data from Data Share to determine which assets need to be replaced on a production line and inform purchase recommendations.

“We bought a refurbished seamer instead of rebuilding our inline asset, because we could see the increased potential output and decreased maintenance cost on the refurbished unit based on the data,” says Tran. Brightly Data Share enabled easy comparisons of total asset cost including capital purchases and maintenance costs to drive down production cost. 

Tran also uses the information from Data Share to make decisions about labor utilization and training. “We use this data as a metric to determine if we are collecting all the work order data – labor hours, assets, locations, etc. The data indicates our efficiency and pinpoints the areas we need to review in our process,” Tran says.

By comparing labor data to reliability numbers, MSI Express makes informed spending decisions. “We may be able to automate some things, get new equipment, or provide training to fix issues that show up,” Tran says. “In one case, I used the data to justify the decision to spend money and bring in a technician from the original equipment manufacturer to train the maintenance team, and now the machine is running more efficiently and our team has a new skillset.”

Boosting visibility

Before switching to Data Share, MSI Express used a different solution for accessing system data. That solution provided a limited number of tokens that could be used to pull updated data, which limited the team’s visibility. 

“With the former solution, we used APIs to pull in data daily,” Tran says. “Now, we receive data automatically every hour and reduce token usage.” Because Tran and others at MSI Express use the data regularly throughout their workday, the hourly updates provide a powerful advantage in making real-time decisions faster.