It’s not easy to be a manufacturer in 2020. Unquestionably, the speed at which business is conducted and executed has accelerated since the turn of the century, and it seems like that trend will only continue. Enterprises like Amazon have acclimated customers to a speed of service that has leaked into almost every other sector and industry and we, as a culture, expect things much faster these days.
Different industries experience and meet the increasing challenges differently. The manufacturing industry in particular struggles in the fast-paced business environment because of the complexity and quality requirements for their processes. It’s far easier to accelerate the speed of business for operations that don’t require the precision and detail-orientation of manufacturers.
Still, the nature of manufacturing is such that things need to be nearly perfect on a reliable basis. And what’s tough is that that’s just one of the many challenges facing manufacturers today!
The following is a list of ways that technology solutions help manufacturers tackle this and other challenges in modern manufacturing.
Bolstered Controls
Strong process controls are integral to a healthy and productive manufacturing operation. Technology solutions like the right ERP system will help manufacturers develop, implement, and maintain a variety of controls to improve workflows and outputs.
Inventory Controls – Carefully monitor all inventory no matter where it is in its lifecycle or its location within the operation. Track any specified inventory material irrespective of whether it’s just been received by your logistics team, is being used in an active manufacturing process, or it’s just left to make its way to a customer.
Robust inventory controls empower management to reduce overhead by carefully tracking and analyzing all inventory data to discover process inefficiencies, redundancies, and other shortfalls that cost time and money.
Lot Controls – Track the flow of all materials through the entire manufacturing and distribution process. Implement and automate customizable alerts or other methods such as reordering for associated manufacturing materials.
Quality Controls – Standardize, implement, and monitor quality control processes through a centralized data management system that stores process information as well as end-result job data, measured against customizable KPIs to determine operational efficacy.
Change Controls – Unified data and process silos like ERP systems afford users the ability to swiftly and sweepingly implement changes in manufacturing processes, ensuring that any modifications made to manufacturing processes make their way to those affected by them immediately.
Streamlined Operational Efficiency
Automating complex and manual tasks in the inventory management process significantly reduces overhead for manufacturers. Manual processes take a tremendous amount of working hours away from skilled personnel, and many of these tasks get automated with the right ERP system. By automating these tasks, not only do you free up your team to focus on more challenging tasks but you also significantly reduce the incidence of human error, which all too often leads to costly mistakes.
Compliance Made Simpler, Business Made Safer
Manual data entry is one of the most significant risk areas for businesses when it comes to compliance. By automating such tasks, manufacturers stand to drastically reduce the risk of legal issues due to operator error. Furthermore, ERP systems maintain full and extensive audit trails, ensuring that you’ll be able to readily respond to any compliance issues as they might arise.
Better Business Through Business Insight
The real power of ERP systems comes in a broad range of business insights it offers leadership. By tracking and unifying all operational data under a single umbrella, the system grants full transparent awareness of everything going on within the operation. Armed with this data and robust cross-referencing and reporting tools, management can make the best possible decisions for the business based upon always up-to-date, real-time information.
Epicor Manufacturing ERP Software
Epicor ERP is delivered either on-premise, hosted or as a cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) offering. Architected using a true service-oriented architecture (SOA) means you purchase only the modules you need.
e2b teknologies customizes, implements, and supports Epicor ERP software for a wide range of manufacturing operations. The sooner your business adapts to the new normal of cloud-computing, the further ahead of the competition you’ll find your business.
Find out how we can take you to peak performance within your manufacturing company, in the accounting department, and across your entire footprint with Epicor ERP.
