Data Automation: For a Lean, Mean, Manufacturing Team

What does it take to make your manufacturing team a lean, mean, optimized machine? It starts at the top and makes its way all the way to the shop floor and vice versa. It’s easy to place the blame anywhere in between, though. If only orders were filled more efficiently, if only the shop floor workers could improve their packaging time, the ‘if only’s’ could go on forever.

Instead of focusing on the if only’s, look at the tools you have at your disposable, and if you’re a manufacturer, your ERP system is probably the one you rely on most. You use it for production management, Bills of Material, graphical scheduling, order promising, demand forecasting, inventory management, and so much more. But do you use it to streamline operations, increase production, save money, and become an overall optimized manufacturer? If the answer is yes, you must be using automated processes. If not, it’s time to learn the secret successful manufacturers use to move their business forward.

The key to automated processes is automating the right processes. This means you need to evaluate your current processes, address complex issues, and develop a plan that will help those processes, and finally build a solution that will help you automate them.

So how, you may ask, should you evaluate your business?

Get an outside perspective: it’s hard to evaluate things with a clear head when you’re involved in the day to day of it. Work with a partner that can help you analyze your processes and who has experts in manufacturing on their team. It’s one thing to look at it with an outside eye, it’s another to have the experience that allows for an outside perspective.

Go from the shop floor to the top floor: As mentioned, optimization takes the team as a whole. You’ll need to evaluate your business from the bottom up to get a clear perspective on where bottlenecks may apply and what the true cost of doing business is.

Address the issues: Automation won’t help unless you address the issues that are holding your business back. You need to be able to understand how changes will help improve your business. This is another important area in which you’ll need to include the whole team; change isn’t always easy, but if everyone can see the benefits, it becomes easier.

Once you’re done evaluating it’s time to automate. Start by looking at automating data capture. It’s simpler than you think, and opportunities abound throughout the organization. Download your free copy of our Tip Sheet and learn Four ways to Reduce Costs using Automated Data Capture.