LEVERAGING DATA SCIENCE FOR EFFECTIVE OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT: TRENDS AND APPLICATION IN MANUFACTURING

Abstract

Data science has become an inevitable vertical in almost all sectors now. However, it plays a vital role in operation management for an effective manufacturing process. The manufacturing sector has always had complex issues since it handles raw material, production units, manpower, recent technology and modern equipment for the production of finished goods. Looking at this process, the data generation will be massive at each end. Data science would help in many ways to know where to look for further optimisation to provide a competitive product to the market. This paper aims to look at recent trends and the application of data science in operation management for an effective management process. Further, the paper addresses the current gaps existing in the manufacturing process that differ from company to company. A simple random sampling method has been deployed for this study with 110 respondents. The data has been collected through offline mode in Madras Export Processing Zone and various industrial estates in Tamil Nadu mainly on Chennai, Coimbatore, Salem and Madurai area). This study intended to know how data science applied in industry to improvise the industrial operations and process management. No data science models or methods deployed in this study. It studies where it has been applied and used to provide more productivity in manufacturing processes. This paper provides useful insights from the research analysis and interprets the results that arrived based on this research. The research gap addressed in this research shows how effective data science helps to optimise day-to-day operations and how it could be improved further to improve the competitiveness of the finished goods from a manufacturing industry's perspective. The research reveals that there is a strong correlation between data science and improving the efficiency of day-to-day operations of the manufacturing industry. This research also suggests that there is a huge scope for implementing data science that enables models in MSME industries to help to improve their profitability and growth of the firms. However, the research results are limited to the study region only and may differ from region to region or country to country.