Celebrating the Death of the Data Cleanse

It’s time we finally say “farewell” to our reliance on traditional data cleanse projects and take a moment to celebrate their passing. While we appreciate the endless chase of perfection, as arduous and archaic as it may have been at times, we need to admit that we just don’t need you anymore to remove the friction from our MRO inventory data. 

It was a good run

We’d be remiss if we didn’t point out the way you have challenged us as procurement and operations professionals, creating opportunities for us to show our strengths, grow alongside our peers, and demonstrate just how much weight one’s domain expertise carries in manufacturing. However, there’s just a better way to move forward now as new capabilities in technology pave a new path.

Our time together will always be cherished with not so nostalgic reverence as we look back upon countless days of manual spreadsheet manipulation and mastery, and good ole fashioned gut instinct to ensure we had the right parts on hand. Your commitment to lengthy analysis and a myopic focus on perfection fueled decades worth of budget cuts, BU realignments, and the sheer thrill of throwing caution into the wind. 

Even as our organizations became increasingly global and maintenance requirements evolved, your insistence that we scrub endless data troughs within our own walls only made work more exciting as we stalled all progress in hopes that squeaky clean data would fall into our laps at any second. 

Thanks for the memories

Oh how we will miss the days of multiple touch points and numerous sources of truth in the frankenstein tech stack, homegrown systems, and ERP instances we insist on upgrading before we allocate any budget to the MRO challenges that continue to hold us back!

The hours, days, and months spent pouring through historical data looking for inconsistencies, outliers, or faulty inputs only to cross the project’s finish line outdated and in no better position are experiences we will treasure forever. We all know it’s far better to work late hours with third-party consulting teams than to make it home in time for dinner with our families. Am I right?

We now celebrate that data cleanses for MRO aren’t necessary

So as AI-powered solutions allow us to forge on into the new era of MRO optimization, please know that we truly believe you once served a purpose. And who knows how long it will take to embrace the streamlined workflows, cloud collaboration, increased visibility, and real-time insights that artificial intelligence can provide almost instantly. 

The exponential improvements we experience from a purpose-built solution that learns from user interaction, natural language processing, and probability-based models will be a tough pill to swallow without you around. But we shall endure. And what shall we do with all the hours, free from redundancy, that data harmonization adds back into our workday? These are all lessons that time will surely teach.

You’ve meant a lot to us, traditional data cleanse projects. Your influence (and price tag) will echo through executive boardroom halls forever. 

To learn more about how some of the world’s largest brands are leveraging AI and leaving MRO data cleanse projects behind, check out our self-guided tour here.