While Business Intelligence (BI) is arguably one of the most prevalent IT acronyms of the day, and some would say, one of the more "must have" areas of functionality within Manufacturing IT systems, it's easy to overlook the benefits that can and ought to be achievable with your existing IT investment.

Ironically, the biggest failure to achieve these lies more often than not with the failings of human intelligence, and not with IT.

Jonathan Orme from Exel Computer Systems explains why: "Manufacturers are increasingly realising that real time, accurate, company wide information is a key to becoming more lean and more agile. But much of this information has been available for a number of years via modern and open ERP systems, which can provide managers with a wealth of information. With an intelligent use of data selection criteria, highly customisable reports are possible which can help turn mountains of data into meaningful information.

"Taken a step further, this leads to exception reporting which gave rise to the concept of management by exception. Yet there are many manufacturing companies today who are only just getting to grips with this concept. Why? Because of a fundamental lack of training and understanding about how to use existing reporting functionality resulting from inadequate investment in training and understanding this often overlooked area of functionality."

SSL WinMan's Steve Whitehouse agrees: "Manufacturers have long been taught the importance of GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out - when it comes to getting data into their ERP systems. Significant money is invested in both technology and training to increase error trapping and reduce costly data entry errors which prevents Garbage going in and therefore going out. Yet often intelligent reporting is almost an afterthought when it really needs to be a central part of any approach to using ERP.

"A modern ERP system contains vast amounts of data, all of which the manufacturer is paying for. A much greater emphasis on implementation strategy and understanding the role of developing meaningful, tailored reports ensures that manufacturers can move to a Quality In, Quality Out scenario."

Orme and Whitehouse are however both enthusiastic supporters of Business Intelligence. Orme again: "Unlike traditional reporting tools, BI is designed to access year's worth of transactions and provide a summary of those transactions instantaneously. These summaries can then be drilled into get the detail or re-grouped in other ways. Management information is now available on-tap and provides managers with instantaneous reporting across a number of different scenarios allowing them to react rapidly to changing circumstances."

Whitehouse highlights another benefit from BI, the variety of output formats and the ability to be interrogated back into data held within the ERP system. "Very recently, some solutions, including WinMan, have begun to make use of Microsoft Reporting Services (MRS) bundled with SQL Server 2005 to provide BI benefits. The tightness of integration possible with MRS in many ways represents the way forward for BI. This is made possible by both Microsoft Reporting Services and WinMan being built on .NET and SQL, allowing a huge variety of report formats including graphics, web browser, email, Excel spreadsheet to name a few.

Moreover, user-specific information based on real time data can be pushed to individual workstations as a digital dashboard which enables senior management and the entire workforce to benefit from the meaningful information generated by the system. The integrated nature of the MRS Report and the ERP system allows the user to make use of what we refer to as 'Smartlinks' which act like dynamic drilldowns. These allow the reports to not only drill down into other data but also into components of the ERP system itself. In many ways, the only limitation will be the imagination of the company using the technology."

Which takes us back to the beginning. Just like traditional reporting, it's easy to think the software does everything for you. If traditional reporting is a window, BI may be likened to a crystal ball, but unless both are used intelligently, you may be left with little more than reflections of your own lack of intelligence.