9 Strategies for Manufacturing Growth with Acumatica: Efficiency
Manufacturers across industry segments face cut-throat global competition, increased product complexity, logistics challenges related to offshore production, shorter product life cycles, and new Industry 4.0 technology requirements throughout most aspects of their businesses.
To drive growth, manufacturers need to focus on what they do best: designing and manufacturing great products while providing exceptional customer service. The last thing they should ever have to worry about is their ERP software or connected business applications.
Acumatica is a full-suite, cloud-native ERP application that provides the adaptable tools and technologies manufacturers need to improve efficiency, decrease costs, generate leads, and increase revenue to grow and transform their businesses effectively in the new economy.
This series of blog posts outlines nine ways that Acumatica helps manufacturers grow. We’ll look at one strategy every Monday.
Strategy #1 – Drive Growth Through Manufacturing Efficiency
Manufacturing is complex and often riddled with inefficiency. Machines or tooling are often set up incorrectly, causing excess scrap. Jobs are started when upstream materials are not available, tying up valuable resources. Expensive capital equipment is underutilized. All of this leads to increased costs for rush orders, wasteful changeovers, and increased scrap—driving up prices, which reduces the company’s ability to compete against more agile manufactuerers or lower-cost foreign competitors.
“If you are a midsized business that desires to grow and has the need to unify your locations, Acumatica brings this amazing gain: it connects people. In today’s world we need communication, and Acumatica provides the ability to have information at your fingertips that’s unified and delivered fast.”
Elena Mheidze, CFO, Erickson International
Acumatica Manufacturing Edition provides an integrated suite of applications designed to drive out inefficiency through automation and actionable business insights.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
There are dozens, if not hundreds, of processes in manufacturing that are redundant, predictable, and require manual intervention. The Acumatica platform is designed to support artificial intelligence and machine learning whereby current and future processes can be partially or completely automated—saving time and improving digital accuracy.
Material Availability
Use demand forecasts and MRP to ensure optimized inventory levels that support manufacturing plans. Identify critical material issues and use hard allocations to enure materials are available for production before the job is scheduled.
Automate Transactions
Use backflushing to automate material issues and labor entry transactions to save time. Lever bar codes, RFID tags, and warehouse automation technologies for faster and more accurate data capture from the shop floor.
Manufacturing Insights
See any issues related to material from MRP exception messages. Monitor and manage jobs with planned cost/actual cost variances and quantity reporting. Maximize capital equipment through machine and work center utilization reports and finite capacity scheduling.
Conclusion
Though the world today is fast-paced (and the pace is getting faster), midmarket manufacturing firms do not have to feel like the world is leaving them behind. Whether you’ve got growing pains, supply chain issues, or you just believe in eliminating waste, Acumatica Manufacturing Edition can deliver what you’re looking for.
