When your company is experiencing fast growth, it can be difficult to keep track of all the manufacturing processes. You may feel overwhelmed by the number of data sources and information silos you are dealing with. You might have a difficult time staying ahead of all the transactions. Your business might not be able to provide differentiating products and services quickly enough for your clients. No one rule says when you should implement a manufacturing ERP system, but growth is one important factor in this decision-making process.
A manufacturing company is never done growing and changing. In order to support the growth, a business must be able to adapt quickly to change without compromising fiscal responsibility or product quality. Implementing an ERP system in a manufacturing business can provide the flexibility needed to overcome the challenges that inevitably come with growth.
Here are five signs that your business is ready for a manufacturing ERP system.
- Your experiencing production scheduling problems
Your business needs to make products and deliver them on time while keeping the bottom line attractive to upper management. If you don’t know what machines are available, what raw materials you have on hand, or if you have enough workforce to satisfy current demand, what are you doing? Unless you go in with a plan, it can be difficult for a business to even keep itself afloat without losing money. It may seem like an easy task overall on paper, but in practice, it can be fairly complex at times.
The best manufacturing ERP systems have delivery and production scheduling modules that can be integrated to automate the entire process. These modules optimize the process of having the right materials in the right place at the right time to please customers.
- You can’t access accurate data easily
For your manufacturing business to be successful, you need as much data as possible. You need instant access to that data in order to make quick and intelligent decisions. Delay in getting data can quickly prove fatal for the success of your organization. It is crucial for a manufacturing business owner to know where their products are at every point. Every time they order one of the many components that go into production, they want to make sure it’s going to their locations efficiently from the moment they purchase it. A delay in getting each of these important products could cost them a fortune in lost revenue. That’s why having access to accurate and up-to-date information is absolutely crucial for profitable operations.
It’s imperative that you retain immediate access to accurate data as it is happening in your operations. Think about how important this is in your day-to-day operations, from sales and marketing to production. The time delay between collecting the data and analysing it can cost you valuable time in figuring out what’s really going on within your business. What if you had a manufacturing ERP solution that could automatically capture data on a live basis? This capability would allow you to have immediate visibility over every aspect of your operation in real time, thereby allowing you to make better decisions faster with a clearer understanding of what really happened with your business.
- You rely on spreadsheets for record keeping and reporting
A modern manufacturing business is impossible without a comprehensive system for recordkeeping. Keeping a record of each business activity enables you to ensure that your business is not only operating well, but also that it’s operating at maximum capacity and output. Having planned out resource management enables you to allocate the right employee to tasks, maximize efficiency and capacity, stay on budget, and reach desired outputs. Without an organized system, you could be running inefficiently without even knowing it.
Spreadsheets are great for basic record keeping and making notes but come at a cost. Consistency, accuracy, and reporting can all be questioned when relying on spreadsheets. A manufacturing ERP system provides companies with real visibility into the heart of business operations in real-time.
- You are running multiple systems
Running multiple systems can be a time-consuming, labour intensive, and error-prone process. What’s more, it means that data is often transferred manually, leaving your company at risk of exposure.
Every company should be working at a high level of efficiency in order to stay on top the game. When multiple systems are running on multiple databases, errors and inconsistencies are bound to occur. The biggest companies in the world realize that efficiency is the key to success. They realize errors and inconsistencies are inevitable when data is transferred manually. They also see that data accuracy means many things wasted time spent looking for mistakes, costly double-checks, and risk of exposure – more than just a simple error.
Manufacturing ERP systems can provide a complete picture of the company’s financial, production and sales processes in real time. An integrated manufacturing ERP provides an end-to-end view of the business to the user. The result? Information is accessible from every single department, errors are reduced, the staff is freed up to perform value-add tasks and the company runs at a much higher tempo.
- Your inventory is out of control
In today’s complex, global business environment, it’s easy for inventory control to become overwhelming. Manufacturers face a host of constantly changing variables from labour costs across company locations and fluctuations in the availability of raw materials to shipping and logistics delays at far-flung distribution centres. That’s why reaching a greater level of accuracy is so key — but also why it can be so difficult to attain. Inaccurate inventory records can adversely impact virtually every part of your manufacturing operation, from its basic day-to-day functions to its most complex regulatory compliance requirements.
Many businesses fail to have inventory management processes that can keep up with changing business needs. Whether you are looking to increase your productivity or expand into a new location, a good manufacturing ERP solution tracks your inventory in real time. Inventory is one of the most challenging aspects of running a business and is complicated by the fact that every industry keeps their inventory differently.
SAP Business One is a comprehensive ERP solution that covers every aspect of your manufacturing business from production, sales, operations to accounting. It enables you to control multiple regions at a single business point. This also helps the company to streamline its supply chain by decreasing the number of manufacturer work-in-progress orders at any time in the company. The solution helps you track all the production order components from a single location and shows you a quick rundown of the status for the entire manufacturing operation.
There is so much more to manufacturing than simply building what you have to build. Manufacturing ERP is absolutely vital for today’s manufacturers to stay competitive and productive. And SAP Business One gives you everything you need to sell, make, manage, and report on the results of your manufacturing efforts.
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