We’ve been speaking with business leaders in the manufacturing industry this past month, including clients and the industry experts at NORTHLink , and realised how far modern MRP software has come in recent years.
Whilst some leaders are very aware of the newer functionalities, others have systems that are ‘set and forget’ and have been compensating for deficiencies with additional staff and laboursome processes.
I wanted to call out some of the key features that we have seen a massive demand for in an MRP platform , and how these can help a manufacturing business grow.
1. Inventory Management:
As a business owner, being able to track and control your stock with accuracy and in real-time allows you to prevent overstocking or stock outs. This means you can better manage your cashflow efficiency and reduce the risk of stock write offs.
You can also automate stock level alerts, to ensure timely reordering and production continuity. Reordering can even be automated with preferred suppliers and delivery times to ensure your raw materials are where you need them, when you need them.
Being able to track and back-track specific batches or individual items for quality control, traceability, and regulatory compliance, can massively reduce liability and extra costs associated with product recalls.
Utilising technology such as barcode scanners can create an immediate return on investment. Not only does it mean staff can be more efficient in their jobs, but it allows the business to perform fast and accurate stock intake, movement, and dispatch. This reduces the risk of human error, speeds up processes, and provides real time data monitoring to keep your business running efficiently.
2. Production Planning and Scheduling:
Most manufacturing businesses are subject to supply and demand constraints. Utilising software that can dynamically adjust your operations in a split second to maintain optimal workflow and meet deadlines, will keep your customers happy and allow you to focus on growing your business.
These systems also track a huge amount of data that can be visualised to give you graphical representations to better understand timelines and dependencies, leading to more efficient planning and execution. They also allow you to drag and drop production schedules, helping to quickly manage unexpected changes or priority shifts.
You can optimise resource utilisation by balancing workloads, avoiding overburdening equipment or personnel, and preventing bottlenecks. The software can also be configured to automatically book and account for downtime as a result of equipment maintenance, to ensure any disruption to your operations are minimised.
3. Bill of Materials (BOM):
With complex products that require multi-level BOM management, the old way of trying to track dependencies and time sub-product production runs, is now streamlined and automated through modern system interfaces. This ensures that all components and sub-assemblies are accounted for accurately, and produced at the right times to make sure any downtime is minimised.
The complexities of tracking costs across multiple SKU’s that have production runs of different sizes, to be accurately accounted for in the final product, is handled automatically and gives you confidence in your pricing and margin requirements.
The consumer market has continually changed and with advancements in technology, product variants have become the norm in a lot of industries. Long has it been since Henry Ford said ‘people can have the model T in any colour – so long as it’s black’. Customers want the option to customise their products, and modern systems can support this by optimising production to account for variants whilst minimising the impact to efficiency.
4. Procurement and Purchasing:
Managing your vendors is a very important part of your business operations that often gets neglected. By maintaining a centralised database of suppliers with performance tracking and analytics, you can foster strong vendor relationships and ensure reliable procurement.
You can automate and track purchase orders from creation to delivery, which will improve procurement efficiency and accuracy. You can also configure these systems to provide smart suggestions for reordering based on stock levels and production requirements, preventing stockouts and overstock situations.
A lot of modern MRP systems also allow you to integrate with supplier portals to streamline communications and transactions which reduce order errors and administrative overheads.
5. Sales Management:
Managing your customers is a critical part of any business. These systems often have customer relationship management (CRM) functionalities that allow you to manage customer interactions, track communications, and improve customer service and sales processes.
They can also quickly generate quotes and invoices, reducing the labour efforts of inputting data between systems, improving cashflow management, and overall customer satisfaction with prompt documentation.
You can also automate and monitor the sales order process, ensuring timely order fulfillment and accurate order tracking. This will also allow you to monitor any unexpected delays and notify the customer in a timely manner.
6. Operations Management:
By operating your manufacturing business out of a modern system, you can gain great insights and efficiencies from the real-time data being gathered. Whether it is from the shop floor to monitor work progress or tracking expenses to control them effectively, these systems can give you greater control and confidence in your business.
They allow you to identify production issues promptly and ensure quality control, manage workstations by allocating tasks and resources to maximise productivity, and track hours by staff and machines to understand true production costs, improve workforce management, and schedule maintenance.
You can capture and address deviations ensuring high product quality and compliance, whilst implementing corrective action plans to address recurring issues for continuous improvements.
7. Financial Management:
Integrating your MRP software with your accounting software allows you to accurately monitor and manage costs throughout the production process to ensure projects stay within budget and profitability targets are met.
It also saves you time at end of month as the reconciliation of accounts is automated, with any variances being produced in a report for investigation.
Explore a Digital Transformation to Power Your Business Growth
By leveraging various manufacturing software functionalities, companies can streamline their operations, improve efficiency, ensure product quality, and enhance overall business performance.
If you would like to discuss how you are using your current MRP system, or what a new MRP system could do for your business, reach out via the form below for a free consultation with our Digital Transformation team.
