To remain competitive in the global marketplace, your company must lower prices, improve quality and deliver quicker. You may have turned to methodologies like Lean Manufacturing and Robotic Automation to improve processes and increase productivity.
Whether it is higher up time of machines, increased flexibility, predictable production or improved yields, manufacturers consistently look for ways to make operations more efficient.
Is your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system preventing productivity? Are you synchronizing data and processes throughout your business? Are you constantly trying to leverage your ERP to streamline your systems and improve productivity? Your payback can be 30 percent or more, and drive profitability.
Hurting or Helping?
Even though you may have a manufacturing ERP System do you maximize it?
Often, we see clients with legacy systems and processes different technological solutions in operations, accounting and other departments. Disparate technology leads to inconsistencies, duplicate data and department-specific jargon, which makes it near impossible for decision-makers to assess reliable, real-time information required to implement change and run operations more efficiently.
Your Manufacturing ERP solution should be able to bring together all organizational functions and seamlessly integrate data and processes. Companies that do benefit from a comprehensive system that supports all functions–from estimation and work-in-process management to accounting and job cost allocation.
Productivity Gains in Key Areas
The needs of manufacturers vary depending on the type of product manufactured, challenges experienced and company goals. ERP facilitates the planning and execution of manufacturing projects in several ways. If you find your self using only bits and pieces of your system. Here are other functions where manufacturing companies can realize productivity gains.
1. Material Requirement Planning (MRP) – Solution automates the front end of production operations. Features include planning and costing of material resources, labor and equipment. It also includes other functions like automated quoting, order processing and resource scheduling. Reduce shipping mistakes and track any modifications in cycle counts for better inventory management.
2. Manufacturing Execution System (MES) – These applications control the actual production phase and shop floor processes. MES functionality encompasses work-in-progress reporting, production tracking, labor tracking, equipment utilization and scrap reporting.
3. Manufacturing Accounting – Enhance the management of the company’s financial transactions and operations, including general ledger, accounts payable and receivable and inventory and payroll. The accounting module also includes support sales orders, purchase orders, change orders, work-in-process reports and job costing modules.
4. Production Planning & Schedules – You should be managing your production schedules, reviewing inventory levels, tracking lead time and promoting informed, build-versus-buy decisions.
Are you squeezing all the productivity out of your system today? to survive today’s environment you need a flexible platform designed for equipment manufacturers to integrate all aspects of the business processes, including planning, design, manufacturing, sales and finances. There are various resources to help you max out and support advance manufacturing techniques to help improve profitability and productivity.