NS BlueScope reduces 36% in man hours through productivity savings with Tableau
36% reduction in man hours
Better decision making owing to the deeper data analysis
Data consolidation and the development of a single point of truth
NS BlueScope Coated Products is a 50:50 joint venture enterprise between BlueScope and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation of Japan. NS BlueScope Coated Products serves the building construction, manufacturing and home appliance industries with innovative, high quality coated & painted steel products across ASEAN and North America region. The company headquartered in Singapore is into the business of metal coating, painting & roll-forming employing over 3,000 people across the 29 plants in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei and the US employees over 15,000 employees who are tasked with the production of steel structures for building and construction works. NS BlueScope utilizes products and services from Tableau Software for historical, current and predictive views of its business operations through data analytics. NS BlueScope has been able to be up to date with market and business trends, which are important in the development, formulation, implementation, and execution of strategic initiatives as well as for gaining suitably competitive edge over competitors.
We grossly underestimated productivity savings! Last year we realized a 36% savings in man-hours in the commercial team!
Consumer satisfaction is an important aspect of any business and in this case, Tableau resonated with NS BlueScope where there is a huge amount of data sitting in multiple different sources. There was no single resource to view or interact with this data. Tableau was the answer for this problem as it allowed for an ease in data consolidation and integrating the data into an easily accessible platform. This consolidation of data prevented inconsistencies and inconveniences that arose due to data duplication, a process that significantly impairs decision-making. In addition, the adoption of Tableau in NS BlueScope allowed it to have a single point of truth within the business with the tool’s ability to structure information models and relevant schemata in a way that the data is not duplicated.
One of the key benefits that NS BlueScope saw with Tableau was the significant reduction in man-hours; NS BlueScope was able to register 36% savings in analysis time. Time and money have an intricate relationship in which the two complement each other; in this case, the savings in man-hours meant that more time could be invested in data insights, trends & decision making. Besides that, the adoption and utilization of Tableau services saw significant improvements in decision-making processes in that NS BlueScope was able to get more insight from deeper data analysis. The positive impacts of the analysis are exemplified by the ease in data manipulation, which buttresses the consumers’ statement, that what you make of a tool is what matters in a business setting. Another benefit to the business is that the Tableaus products are user-friendly and intuitive; consequently, there was no need for intensive training among NS BlueScope employees on the use of its dashboards.
Across the NS BlueScope business, Tableau has helped to shape the many aspects of the decision-making process and allowed different stakeholders within the business from the senior management to junior employees to consume and interact with this data. Although a lower touch of Tableau among the senior management, these dashboards are utilized during the annual general meetings or during midyear meetings where they rely on its data to make critical decisions. Nonetheless, the other employees across the multiple departments such as the procurement, supply chain management, finance, marketing and budgeting in NS BlueScope use it on a nearly daily basis. An example of the marketing team on how they intend to use Tableau in future will be to monitor consumer behaviours, preferences and purchase history.
Better visualization through clear and efficient communications
For quite some time, NS BlueScope experienced tremendous growth in the Vietnam market; nonetheless, with a host of challenges. Consequently, NS BlueScope had to depart from its conventional sources of Business Intelligence; Enterprise Resource Management. Cognos and Excel. The growth in Vietnam led to the need for constant analysis as well as a quest for a solution to data inconsistencies. Therefore, NS BlueScope adopted Tableau which solved the problem of the dichotomy of data, lack of consolidation and lack of consistency in data analytics. With the implementation of Tableau, NS BlueScope was able to streamline IT management and improve decision-making process, streamlining consumer service provision as well as eliminate data duplication problems.
Despite several challenges in the implementation of Tableau, NS BlueScope has been able to not only overcome these difficulties but also benefit from the software. However, the benefits of the software far outweigh the impediments to its adaptation. Key among the benefits to NS BlueScope is the better visualization; Tableau provides clear and efficient communication which helps users to analyze and reason about data. Furthermore, the software makes complex data more accessible, usable and secures resulting in better decision making, governance, and enterprise-readiness.
Lastly, the adaptation of Tableau Software helped in the initiation of projects that are geared towards organizational efficiency. To start with NS BlueScope will soon commence the development of function specific dashboards that will be utilized by different departments. Such developments are essential in the provision of insight and trends analysis in these departments. Secondly, the implementation of the program has seen the commencement of a data centralization project that seeks to eliminate the problems of not having a joint functionality of data.