Ultimately, the success of a project can often be traced right back to step one: are you being tactical or strategic?
When a company’s goal for a project is to develop an inexpensive way to collect data, they are thinking tactically. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; if you’re just beginning to think about data – defining it, collecting it, measuring it – you’re likely not ready for an enterprise-wide global process.
As companies grow and mature, their strategic vision might include phrases such as: “We’re trying to increase up-time of our operating plants because we know that if we reduce the number of injuries and the cost of injuries, we can apply that capital back to the business, making the business more competitive,” or, “Next time there’s downtime, we won’t lose all our compliance information because it will be in a system and not in a single employee’s head.”
A company thinking this way is likely to implement a successful EMIS project, one that gives a disciplined approach to managing this information, the ability to use the information to learn proven, best-in-class processes, and ultimately to drive greater operational efficiencies.