How can prescriptive analytics be useful in the manufacturing value chain?

Today’s manufacturing environment is highly dynamic & complex and consists of various stakeholders like multiple suppliers & partners, multiple distribution channels, multiple fulfillment partners, multiple customer types, etc. Decisions have to be taken on business performance and overall supply chain which should be very vital for the present and future of the organization. Analytics will help take these decisions for manufacturing organizations.

Analytics applications are of three main types – descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive. Descriptive analytics is the most widely used analytics methodology which has extensive use in manufacturing companies. Descriptive analytics deals with historical transactional data and creates analytics reports for taking decisions, measuring KPIs, and helping extract actionable intelligence. Predictive analytics also uses historical transactions but it predicts the probable future value. For example, the chance of slippage or failure for procuring any part from a specific vendor or chance of slippage or failure in transporting through specific 3PLs can be predicted by predictive analytics. Predictive analytics forecasts future bottlenecks that an organization may face.