Manufacturing ERP Software Systems Going Global

Manufacturing ERP software implementation managers are continually facing challenges with increasing complexity and changes within business processes, logistics processes, shrinking budgets, and fewer resources all of which are the nature of the beast when it comes to global manufacturing operations. ERP software project management systems are invaluable enterprise technology tools to help IT managers meet the day to day manufacturing challenges by helping to align various business departments and processes into a coherent collaborative system both domestically and with the multitude of international intercompany departments as well as international distribution partners, warehouses and vendors. Compounded by current economic challenges and increasing competition, the primary objective for many ERP software project managers is to concentrate on enterprise software initiatives that deliver streamlining and cost saving benefits throughout the organization with respect to departmental efficiencies, company-wide cost savings, and business process optimization (including automation) to produce the highest performance and productivity, given the current resources at hand. Throughout the supply chain, manufacturing partners as well as business partners are putting increasing pressure on their suppliers and manufacturing partners to cut costs across all areas while delivering better performance, more services and better products. Reducing costs and increasing performance are the top two factors for a manufacturer to be competitive and stay in business, particularly in a down economy. Cutting prices at the demands of customers of more than five percent is not uncommon in today’s market. With that price reduction the manufacturer or vendor is also expected to increase productivity by ten percent or more. With these extremely difficult but commonplace demands, companies are looking to ERP software tools and enterprise system applications to deliver these high cost saving and productivity improvements required by the marketplace. ERP project management systems and ERP system applications are critical components to improving the full supply chain spectrum. The good news for companies that have not yet implemented a full ERP software system is that there is a lot of low hanging fruit to harvest that will deliver significant cost saving and performance benefits. For these businesses, IT managers are implementing single source, enterprise resource planning systems that better manage operational activities such as equipment maintenance, production, quality assurance levels, as well as inventory management. The metrics used to monitor the effectiveness and to determine the ROI on an ERP system investment are key performance indicators (KPIs) that are established before and after the enterprise system implementation. KPIs are set up to evaluate manufacturing management performance with respect to order accuracy, delivery standards, asset utilization, and response time to meet opportunistic ad hoc orders. It is a good assumption that with the best of class companies that achieve over 93 percent on time and accurate shipments, over 83 percent equipment utilization and less than 9 hours in response time to opportunistic ad hoc orders that they are all using state of the art ERP software systems and enterprise system applications. In order to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage in this tough economy and the inherent challenges associated with manufacturing industries, a manufacturing business needs to continually improve key performance indicators with real-time visibility throughout the entire manufacturing process including supplier and business partnerships.