Fixing visibility gaps - Using Tyson as an example

We are applying the thought process to Tyson as a specific example of a business problem where building the ability to report key parts of data from their existing systems can solve a major problem.

• What problem are we solving?

  • Tyson management needed to get accurate information about what their products are truly costing to manufacture. Their existing IT systems weren’t designed to solve this particular problem since the Covid market dynamic has created an unprecedented business environment.

• Why can’t we solve it using our existing system or by upgrading or changing our system?

  • Upgrading a large ERP system is hard. They happen to use Netsuite but it would be the same problem with any ERP system.

• What’s the minimum set of data we need to solve this problem?

  • How many products are we dealing with?

  • We can minimize the amount of data we need to collect by remembering the 80-20 rule. Mostly likely a handful of products - less than 20% of the products probably generate more than 80% of the revenue. So rather than boiling the ocean it may make sense to focus on getting data problem figured out for the most significant products - not all of them.

  • Likewise we dig into these products we apply the 80-20 rule again by ignoring inputs which are not significant cost drivers. If you are making chicken pies and it only costs 0.0001 hours of human time to make each chicken pie then labour isn’t a significant enough cost driver to worry about.

  • Are there other ways we can simplify our analysis?

    • Is it what it would cost us at today's input prices to make another chicken pie?

    • Or do we care what it cost to make the chicken pie we are shipping today?

      • Getting clarity on these questions are ways to avoid extra work and get data faster.

• Are we collecting this data? Yes/No?

  • If no, then how could we collect it?

    • This is both a people problem and a technology problem. It’s important to clearly communicate what information is required and why it’s required. Remember communication is a key part of being a good integration engineer.

    • One useful tool to use the ability of Iguana to receive data from excel spreadsheet.

  • If yes then what systems have this data and how can we get it?

    • What systems are they and what are the different ways we could get the data we need out of them?

• How can we use the data to solve the problem?

  • Most likely it’s going to be possible to create a small adhoc database for reporting. It’s A-Okay for this database just to solve the immediate problem. Once again don’t boil the ocean.

    • Once you have an easy to query adhoc database it’s quite straightforward to report off it.