We have all been there – engaged someone to do a survey of the organization on some topic or other or perhaps complete some other type of analysis (and I am not just thinking here about spare parts inventory analysis).
We then look forward to the meeting where they present their ‘findings’ and generate the insight that we were seeking.
However, far too often the ‘findings’ turn out to be merely a reporting to us of the data and converting that into statistics.
You know the sort of thing: A% of people think B, while C% think D. This misses any sort of insight and rarely answers what I call the ‘so what’ factor.
In my area of spare parts inventory management this outcome is particularly prevalent because there is just so much data that its easy to come up with a whole range of analyses on inventory holdings and movement. This experience is even worse with many public webinar events because the presenters mistake statistics for insight.
And this leads me to the heading for today’s post – Are 99% of spare parts inventory statistics pointless? I think that they are, because 99% of statistics are presented without answering the ‘so what’ question –what do the numbers actually tell us that we can take action on (including ‘do nothing’) and why we should take that action?
In my view it is not just important but actually critical that any type of analysis goes on to answer the ‘so what’ question. Otherwise none of us is better off and it’s all just pointless statistics.
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Posted by: Phillip Slater