A recent article from SAP poses the interesting question: Could you call a surprise meeting with key managers today and analyze sales trends over the past two years, to uncover problem areas and discover new opportunities? The article makes the point that most CEOs could not hold this meeting on short notice, because key information is departmentalized (read: siloed). If you are also making the products you sell, that adds a whole new layer of complexity to performing this analysis.  If the products you make are made from a formula or recipe, have limited shelf life on some ingredients, materials, or finished goods – in other words, if you are a process manufacturer – then the likelihood of multiple silos of information is increased, as is the number of possible problem areas.  The good news is that bringing these separate silos of information together also reveals many more opportunities for improvement. Read more…