For those that operate in the manufacturing industry – efficiency is everything. If you can make your machines produce more product and process and fulfill orders more quickly – you stand to gain a lot from a revenue perspective. But so many manufacturers get caught up in day-to-day issues and lose sight of increasing efficiency in their organization. If you’re still relying on paper, outdated technology or haven’t streamlined your communication – there is a lot of room for improvement. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a large-scale software program that many modern manufacturing firms use to manage the internal process and communication flow. Here are a few ways that manufacturing companies can boost efficiency (and profit) with Enterprise Resource Planning.
- Eliminate paper
As technology evolves, we see fewer and fewer note pads in meetings and more applications and software programs that are designed to keep things in one place. ERP is one way that manufacturers can use technology to maintain their inventory and orders to boost efficiency. Rather than having separate programs and processes for ordering, receiving, inventory and production – all of these components within a manufacturing company can be managed as one within an ERP program. Having access to accurate inventory and production numbers allows manufacturing companies to more closely manage any wasted material and have everything centrally managed by a single software platform.
- Streamline communication
Just as resources and material must be closely tracked and managed, you must also make sure that the interactions and notes regarding these materials are also closely managed. Many details and notes regarding orders get lost in a sea of e-mails. ERP can help to keep all your correspondence regarding individual orders and the processes surrounding those orders centralized so that all of the information is available to all departments (or select departments) at any given time. Streamlined communication means less double entry with note taking and entering data into multiple locations – which means employees can focus their time on less menial tasks.
- Make sales simpler and improves customer service
With an ERP program connecting all the dots, customer service representatives can quickly reference past orders to discuss fulfillment, returns and satisfaction. The same system can also help sales reps track inventory and pull up past orders for clients that make multiple purchases or re-orders.
Managing the operations of a large manufacturing facility might have once been very simple, but as manufacturing businesses look to scale and grow, things can become very complicated. Rather than managing all of your workflows, inventory and orders in separate programs (or worse, manually), take the time to explore what an ERP solution can do for your business.