Manufacturing

Bottom Line: Manufacturers are achieving only 40% of their potential because they’re spending too much valuable time manually updating inventory control, production reporting, and pricing reports when their competitors using real-time data to get the data they need to win deals and plan next-generation real-time factories Manual Reporting Creates Mediocre Results Relying only on manually-produced reports, manufacturers are able to use at best 40% of their production capacity based on interviews and plant visits completed in the last six months.…

From nutrition labels to warning labels and address labels to shipping labels, those sticky pieces of paper are pervasive in our everyday lives. And let’s not forget to mention the importance of labels and, more specifically, proper label controls when running a modern manufacturing facility. From business showstoppers such as compliance issues to the mis-shipment of products, improper labeling can genuinely affect a manufacturers’ bottom line. Benefits of a Manufacturing Label Control Application A Tier 1 automotive supplier lacked proficient label…

Bottom Line: 2020 manufacturing trends are driven by manufacturers’ strong confidence in their ability to deliver high-quality products that earn repeat orders while delivering excellent customer experiences. Their most anticipated growth barriers are chronic labor shortages, pre-emptive competitive price wars, and early signs of sales cycles slowing down. Running Lean While Focusing On Keeping Margins Strong Running lean and struggling to find the employees they need to keep up the pace of production across their shop…

Manufacturers report several common challenges to properly and efficiently filing, remitting, and reporting on taxable transactions. Tracking tariffs, tax rates, and product taxability rules across jurisdictions staying tax compliant while growing the bottom line, and managing exemptions in preparation for the inevitable audit are a few that frequently top the list. These days, global trade wars, shifting supply chains, and increasing pressure to find new avenues for growth are adding extra layers of complexity to…

Just a few years ago, sustainability in manufacturing was seen as a nice-to-have. Today, sustainable manufacturing is becoming a critical factor in a manufacturer’s ability to compete and maximize profitability. This was driven home to me in a recent discussion with a Gartner analyst. She noted that the research firm used to give sustainability a weight of 10% in scoring the top 25 manufacturing companies; this year the weight is 15%, and next year, it…

A Supply Chain ERP system orchestrates and optimizes forecasting, pricing, procurement, sourcing, and inbound product quality levels across the many supplier relationships manufacturers have, providing real-time accounting and financial reporting of each transaction. Supply Chain ERP systems provide Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) integration support, inventory control and management, inventory and order-level financial reporting, distributed order management, warehouse and distribution reporting, and analytics and integrated asset tracking systems. Defining Supply Chain ERP Manufacturers are improving delivery performance, reducing purchasing and materials…

By improving ERP quoting and pricing management for every dealer, distributor, and reseller they sell-through manufacturers can get more than their fair share of channel sales and margins. It’s possible to expand earnings by 50% on slight increases in volume when pricing is consistent channel-wide. McKinsey’s latest research on the topic, Pricing: Distributors’ Most Powerful Value-Creation Lever, shows how the highest performing distributors use pricing to create value. For manufacturers competing for more sales through distributors, they…

Bottom Line: Food and beverage supply chains are the fuel that drives the growth of every food & beverage manufacturer today. An integrated, scalable, secure Warehouse Management System (WMS) can assist in transforming supply chain efficiency into internal process performance gains while ensuring accuracy, compliance and cost control.    Keeping A Food & Beverage WMS Current Is a Continual Challenge The most common reason a food & beverage WMS will be replaced is that it’s built for a different…

Bottom line: Machine learning makes it possible to discover patterns in supply chain management data by relying on algorithms that quickly pinpoint the most influential factors to a supply networks’ success, while constantly learning in the process. Discovering new patterns in supply chain data has the potential to revolutionize any business. Machine learning algorithms are finding these new patterns in supply chain data daily, without needing manual intervention or the definition of taxonomy to guide the analysis. The…

Capitalizing on new digital business models and the growth opportunities they provide are forcing companies to re-evaluate the role ERP plays in their manufacturing strategies. Made inflexible by years of customization, legacy ERP systems aren’t delivering what digital business models need today to scale and grow. Legacy ERP systems were purpose-built to excel at production consistency first at the expense of flexibility and responsiveness to customers’ changing requirements. By taking a business case-based approach to integrating machine…