I’m a big believer in measuring what you want to improve. Measuring gives you data and you’ll see trends (good or bad) emerge. Figure out what is causing the good trends and keep doing that. Maybe you can even find ways to make the good trends better. Figure out what is causing the bad trends and find ways to stop doing that; or at least, minimize it.
With the continuous evolution of modern ERP software solutions, there is a growing number of manufacturing data collection and analysis options available to you. In this article, we’ll discuss a few manufacturing data points that provide a good overall view of your performance and how they fit together.
I have been to a lot of companies and worked with a lot of people over the years, and I've come to the realization that we all use the tools we know to deal with issues we face. If you ask an assassin to fix a problem, someone is going to die. If you ask a programmer to fix a problem, a new program will be created.
For a while now, I’ve been hearing the term “digital transformation”; but I never really thought about it. Usually, when I hear the same term over and over, I can figure out its meaning by the context in how it’s used. That was not the case here. I never asked the person using the term because I didn’t want to look stupid. Of course, pretending you know something when you don’t is the ultimate in stupidly, so I Googled it. Here is the definition according to i-SCOOP's website:
Infor has released more functional enhancements for VISUAL ERP in the last 24 months than we normally see. Infor VISUAL ERP Product Manager Rich Lagoy and the VISUAL ERP steering committee are driving out new functionality at a faster pace than before, delivering quarterly updates to the large VISUAL ERP user base and new sales customers.
If you've read any Visual South blogs, you know we like to focus on solving problems. This article will help you think through which deployment option (cloud or on-premise) would be a better fit for your company.
There are many opinions as to what key performance indicators (KPIs) should be monitored at a small to medium-sized manufacturing company, but the on-time delivery (OTD) KPI is on everyone’s list. It doesn’t matter if the company is build-to-stock, a job shop, or something in-between; there are many steps in coordinating the production of a product and OTD is a nice summation of manufacturing performance.
Capacity planning is almost always involved, whether directly or indirectly, with the work Visual South does with manufacturing companies. Over the years, we’ve learned the best processes for capacity planning, but let’s first define the term, so we all begin on the same page.
Managing a shop floor is no easy task. Your employees make mistakes, equipment breaks, rush orders slip in, jobs ship late, and days are long. On top of that, there is the constant demand to reduce costs and increase quality. It’s a real pressure cooker.
At Visual South, we always recommend that our customers have solid business process documentation templates. Companies often have written procedures for quality control, human resources, safety, and the like, but not always for enterprise resource planning. Not having processes documented for your ERP software creates risk that can have disruptive effects and negatively impact the bottom line.