Technology & Automation
5 Key Metrics That Drive Higher Manufacturing Quality
Manufacturers who are growing faster than competitors and gaining market share while thwarting price wars all share a common trait. They have an intensity about product quality that reverberates through each work center, plant, and across their production network. Flat
... ContinuedCreating Strong, Scalable Production Teams With Analytics
Numerous studies have demonstrated how analytics will change manufacturing quickly over the next three to five years. Manufacturers leading the adoption curve know that having their teams engaged, owning the analytics app development, customization and launch will determine if the many
... Continued10 Ways Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) Are Accelerating Time-To-Market and Quality
Any manufacturer who pursues greater speed, scale of operations and strives to be simpler to do business with will win more deals and grow faster than competitors. Gartner, IDC and independent research studies all show that manufacturers who provide the
... ContinuedWhy Industry-Specific ERP Fits Process Manufacturing
Process manufacturing is defined by Gartner as “manufacturing that adds value by performing chemical reactions or physical actions to transform materials, or by extracting, mixing, separating, or forming materials in batch or continuous production modes.” Batch manufacturing mode is where
... ContinuedTechnology & Software Considerations When Choosing Your PLM Software
When customers, suppliers and employees have questions about how you planned, designed, launched and produced a part, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software enables all of the key stakeholders to have clarity to make informed decisions. This valuable peace of mind
... ContinuedFinding an ERP Solution that Eliminates Data Silos Between Accounting and the Shop Floor
As organizations grow, each department and often individual managers develop systems to manage the information that is important to them. Although well intended, these disparate systems can lead to inaccuracies, duplicate efforts, and costly mistakes. For example, an order processing
... Continued5 Supply Chain Metrics That Matter The Most
It’s a well-known management axiom that you can’t improve what you don’t measure. This concept has been attributed to such varied sources as management guru Peter Drucker, Sir William Thomson, also known as Lord Kelvin, and W. Edwards Deming, father
... ContinuedMaterial Requirements Planning (MRP): Why Choose a Unified ERP System?
Material requirements planning (MRP) software, also known as material resource planning, was first developed in the 1960s when computers began to become an integral and widespread part of the manufacturing sector. What is an MRP system? Material requirements planning is
... ContinuedMore Effectively Track Vendor Managed and Outsource Inventory
In this age of virtual reality, I pose a question: “Do you know where your inventory is located?” Not your physical inventory – that’s probably somewhere on your plant floor and you probably have a very efficient system to track
... ContinuedWhat is Supply Chain Management (SCM)?
What is Supply Chain Management? Many business people talk or read about supply chain management (SCM) without really understanding what it means or the impact it can have on a company’s profitability and market share. Whether you’re a seasoned professional
... ContinuedOEE: How to Calculate Overall Equipment Effectiveness
OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) takes the three sources of manufacturing productivity loss: Availability, Performance and Quality, and creates metrics that provide a consistent way to measure the effectiveness of a machine or process. Availability Factor The Availability Factor of the
... ContinuedModernizing the Medical Device Supply Chain
At the recent American Medical Device Summit in Lombard, Illinois, several FDA officials delivered presentations to help the device designers and manufacturers successfully engage with the FDA, physicians and the patient end-consumers. Yet, with the cost of development and launch
... ContinuedLot Traceability Software for Manufacturing
Lot traceability in manufacturing has made a lot of headlines recently. We’ve all read how a popular automaker has been under fire in recent years for their quality problems. You can just imagine how devastating it must be to find
... ContinuedCloud ERP Software: The New Reality for Manufacturing
In the world of manufacturing where mission-critical enterprise applications such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) are used to run factories, companies have historically been hesitant to embrace cloud based software. Recently, IQMS CEO and president
... ContinuedBest practices in labeling are as important as best practices in production
Why the label can be worth as much as the part Automated and high speed manufacturing operations have upped the ante in product labeling. Best practices in label quality are now often just as important as best practices in part
... Continued