It seems like just yesterday that the concept of cloud-based ERP for the manufacturing industry was far-fetched. But today’s reality is manufacturers are choosing cloud deployment over on-premise deployment virtually every time. That is a paradigm shift for those of us who have been working with enterprise applications in the manufacturing sector.
If your company is evaluating ERP solutions, you already know that choosing the right system is a big decision. The evaluation process is not straightforward, or something that companies do on a regular basis. Selecting a new ERP is typically a “once in a (business) lifetime” decision, because if you land on the right solution, your company will extract value from it for decades.
More and more manufacturing companies are moving away from on-premise applications. Cloud-based ERP applications are the future for the industry due to the myriad of benefits: alleviated need for hardware, database, and operating system software; fewer internal or outsourced teams for maintenance; and never having to worry about being on the latest version of your ERP.
That vast majority of ERP projects are successful. There are obstacles and challenges associated with any large project, but good teams always succeed. That means you understood the specific steps in the ERP project, built a strong ERP implementation team, and made sure business objectives drove the primary deliverables of the expected new and improved functionality.
If your company is thinking about getting or actively evaluating new ERP software, then you’re probably in a quandary about how to balance priorities and needs. Selecting the right ERP system for your company means finding one that’s not the most basic, not the most complex, not the cheapest, not the most expensive…. you get the picture. It can be tough to determine which one is a perfect fit. And to complicate matters, an ERP solution is typically a generational decision. Ideally, your company will use it for decades to come, so choosing the best ERP means being able to extract benefits from it now and way down the road.
These two manufacturing modes are just what you’d assume. Make-to-stock manufacturing is where finished goods are built to inventory. The demand associated with make-to-stock is typically driven by a forecast. Additionally, a mix of forecasting, inventory quantities driven by planning policies, and actual demand can drive planning and scheduling for make-to-stock manufacturers.
SAP is a technology company that has been around a long time and offers what is often regarded as the top ERP software in the world. SAP ERP is built primarily for large companies in a variety of industries. Companies that are household names (e.g. BP, Coca-Cola, BASF, Audi, Burger King, and Citrix) very likely use SAP’s ERP software somewhere in their operations.
Visual South sells ERP for manufacturing-centric companies. More specifically, we sell Infor CloudSuite Industrial (SyteLine) and Infor VISUAL ERP. My experience with VISUAL goes back decades: When I was a plant manager, I bought and implemented VISUAL; I was a VISUAL consultant for years; and I’ve taken deep dives into CloudSuite Industrial.
What sign manufacturers have in common with other types of manufacturers is that they have to plan for material requirements, schedule jobs, and execute the production of those jobs. That being said, sign manufacturers have numerous requirements and needs that are unique to their industry. In this article, we’ll review how those unique requirements can be addressed with sign industry software, or sign manufacturing software.
