Master data management strategy necessary in the framework of data governance
Heidelberg, May 24, 2017 - Reliable master data is a central precondition for successful industry 4.0 applications. This is valid for data exchange via intercorporate systems as well as between business partners and external systems. However, companies still struggle with data management problems. Data is scattered across different data silos while being differently structured and defined, not accessible, do not have sufficient data quality and are poorly documented. To cut a long story short, suitable data and especially master data management do not exist.
The Business Application Research Center (BARC), a research and consulting institute for business software based in Würzburg, Germany, had the same result in its current research note "Establishing the precondition for industry 4.0 with universally transparent master data”. zetVisions AG, IT specialist for software solutions for master data and legal entity management, has enabled the free distribution of the independent study through sponsoring.
The offers of technology providers relating to industry 4.0 promise to better link IT and machine systems with each other, save more data in an inexpensive way, evaluate them intuitively with the help of modern analyzing tools to make better decisions, accelerate processes as well as develop and offer new products and services in the end. "Data plays a central part in this. The required interplay of the systems can only work if these operate on a shared data basis such as uniform and centrally managed raw material, investment and product master data,” the authors of the study, Lars Iffert and Timm Grosser, say.
Applications relating to industry 4.0 are possible across the entire value chain from research and development, purchase and production to sales and service. An implementation, however, is only possible on the basis of integrated, reliable and accessible data. In this context, master data management with growing interest has increased analyzing requirements on the basis of distributed data across systems or new synchronization requirements between systems in batch or real-time operation on the one hand and on the other hand strategic importance increases. "Companies have to establish he right preconditions for reliable master data through a master data management strategy in the framework of data governance,” say Iffert and Grosser. A master data management strategy rests on the three pillars of organization (process organization for MDM), processes (structure of and dealing with master data) as well as technology (MDM architecture approach and the tools that need to be used). These three pillars are inseparably connected and are mutually dependent.
The authors of the BARC study come to the conclusion that industry 4.0 applications are mostly data-driven, their success therefore depends on reliable and integrated data. "Data availability is the linchpin of industry 4.0,” Iffert and Grosser emphasize. Data quality and master data management initiatives therefore are inevitable. Yet, many companies recoil from data optimization projects. It was shown, however, that successful initiatives work because they were started and developed evolutionarily.
The Research Note "Establishing the precondition for industry 4.0 with universally transparent master data” can be requested via the contact form.
