Management + Systems

By David Hallam, managing director of OrderWise Stock Control and Order Processing Software

Manufacturing companies often have to manage a complex balancing act. On the one hand there is the importance of recording detailed information in order to obtain accurate costs, stock levels, production progress and other essential data needed for achieving effective management. On the other hand companies want to ensure that staff aren’t overwhelmed by a seemingly endless amount of information needing to be logged, resulting in productivity or quality being affected.

In today’s highly competitive market, there is even greater pressure for companies to have tight control of business and manufacturing operations. With a global supplier base offering more options than ever to customers, there is a necessity to keep a tight grip on costs whilst ensuring the highest quality of product and customer service levels are provided. With this in mind, it comes as no surprise that the most critical investment manufacturers can make is the choice of software systems used to manage daily operations.

When deciding on the right solution, companies need to ensure they consider the needs of the entire business in the long-term and not just the individual departments where the immediate issues lie. All too often companies discover that while the highly specialised software they invested in improves performance in specific areas, it created new problems elsewhere. By looking at the end-to-end solution required to meet both current and future operational requirements, from a vendor who has the experience to deliver, this will result in a successful implementation with a higher and faster return on investment.

However, it is not just how a software solution in its current form meets future requirements that needs to be considered. With the rapid pace of technology innovation, ever changing business practices, and trading conditions, you need to be confident that the solution you choose is from a provider that is constantly investing, expanding and enhancing its product in order to keep you ahead of the competition. By choosing a scalable solution that can adapt with your needs and ambitions, companies are able to take advantage of cutting edge features that will help to promote business development for years to come.

So when choosing the right solution, manufacturers should consider a system that will not only provide the operational implementation to streamline processes and improve accuracy and efficiency across the entire business, but also one that will continue to deliver the very latest technology and software functionality to promote year-on-year growth.

www.orderwise.co.uk