There are dozens of metrics that can be used to identify success or failure within a manufacturing process. But as refined and granulated as these metrics are capable of being, it is often the simplest indicators that reveal the most.
Take something as basic as quotas. You are supposed to produce X number of a product, but you fall short of that by 10,000 units. It is possible to attribute that failure to many factors, but trying to identify every little thing doesn’t offer much of a solution.
The better strategy is to realize that falling short of quotas on a regular basis, or even just once, indicates a dysfunctional supply chain and manufacturing operation. Luckily, by implementing ERP software for manufacturing, it is possible to correct the kinds of minor faults and systemic failures that will always inhibit your manufacturing efforts.
Here are some examples illustrating how:
Anticipate Orders Farther in Advance
Preparation is key if you’re going to meet a big quota. But how can you prepare if you’re not given adequate advanced notice? ERP provides a shared platform for data from different departments like sales, marketing, and manufacturing. Once you have access to this platform, you can see when the efforts of customer-facing departments will increase your future quotas. Whatever preparations you need to make can be completed early rather than after it’s too late.
Gain Perspective Over the Supply Chain
No matter how well your operations run internally, you are wholly dependent on your supply chain to deliver the materials and resources you require to meet your quotas. And it only takes a minor delay or disruption in a far corner of your supply chain to cause your forecasts to fall short. ERP enables a more productive form of supply chain management by giving you a top-down perspective over all of the input points. That way, if there is an issue you need to be aware of, it is immediately apparent rather than an unexpected and unwelcome surprise later on.
Root Out Inefficiencies
The smallest inefficiency repeated thousands of times contributes into the kind of major delays that make it impossible to meet manufacturing quotas. But when you are already struggling to keep pace and then have to work even harder to keep up, it is not easy to find the kind of minute corrections that need to be made to get you back on track. ERP takes much of the guess work out of manufacturing by putting the up-to-date information you need the most in one place. Instead of searching for a needle in a haystack, you have a real means to solve persistent problems.
Take Advantage of Optimizations
In order to reliably meet quotas into the foreseeable future, you can’t just eliminate mistakes. You also need to making enhancements, refinements and upgrades that improve on whatever your peak capacity is now. After all, if your company is successful, growth is assured, which only means that today’s quotas are a fraction of tomorrow’s. ERP is a data management tool, but once you take control of your data you can use it to make exciting and unexpected optimizations across the board. By relying on communication, collaboration, and analytics, you’re empowered to make the kind of improvements that are necessary for continued competitiveness.
The reason that ERP is so uniquely positioned to help with manufacturing quotas is because this resource provides a lot of new capabilities without drastically altering your workflows. In fact, the best tools for ERP manufacturing conform to the way you already do things, not the other way around. If falling short is unacceptable, ERP is essential.
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