Announcement
Now Available!
Get your copy of the 7th Annual State of Smart Manufacturing and hear from 300+ manufacturers in this new survey report!
Food & Beverage
Plex Manufacturing Blog
Manufacturing Enterprise Technology: The Best Is Yet to Come
This week, I have the privilege of welcoming several hundred Plex customers to PowerPlex, our company’s 12th annual user conference in Columbus, Ohio. We’re engaging in many of the typical user conference activities – introducing new features, training on existing product functions and networking. But the spirit in the air is far from typical for a user conference....
Read More
Guest Post: Increasing Employee Engagement Through Increased Operations Visibility
There is a lot of interest in visibility these days, and rightly so. Visibility throughout the enterprise and to the far reaches of the supply chain is becoming more and more pervasive through the evolution of sensors, RFID, Internet connectivity, cellular technology, location services (GPS) and even the Internet of Things — which recognizes that nearly everything can and will be visible and…
Read More
Guest Post: Can You Afford Unprofitable Customers and Products?
During a visit to a local manufacturing company, I learned that the company had recently undergone a difficult transition. After taking a close look at their business and their customers, it had become obvious that margins were significantly different between one group and another. Some products and customers were profitable to serve; others, not so much....
Read More
Read Between the Lines: The Importance of Barcoding in Manufacturing Processes
When is the last time you saw a barcode label on a product? Last night at the grocery store? On a magazine you read the other day? Do you even notice them anymore? If you’re in manufacturing, you most definitely notice them. The codes on the thousands of labels you see each day tell you everything you need to know about the parts your organization receives, produces and ships....
Read More
Ongoing ERP Training Prevents Brain Drain
Have you experienced brain drain within your organization when skilled employees left, resulting in knowledge gaps? If this is your problem, we have the solution. The best way to combat brain drain is to engage your organization in ongoing ERP training....
Read More
In Supply Chain Management, Transparency Is the New Normal
While supply chain management is often considered its own function within the manufacturing enterprise, effective supply chain communication is critical to virtually every area of the business. But old-school relationships between OEMs and tier suppliers were often marred by distrust, suspicion and adversity. ...
Read More
The Cloud in the Room: Considering Cloud ERP for Your Business
It’s there, swirling around, and it’s getting harder to ignore. It’s been the center of manufacturing conversations for quite some time, but perhaps you’re not sure what to make of it, or how you can apply it to your business. What is it?...
Read More
A Chance to Transform: 5 Key Questions to Ask ERP Vendors
Are you heading into an ERP selection project? Or are you heading into a manufacturing transformation project? We’ve found that top-performing manufacturers use their active ERP project for something greater. ...
Read More
Guest Post: Electronic Documentation Eases FSMA Compliance
On the two-year anniversary of the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act, or FSMA, the agency proposed its first two major FSMA rules – and the food industry finally got a glimpse into the FDA’s expectation of preventive controls. A major part of compliance is documentation. According to the FSMA, if it isn’t recorded, it didn’t happen....
Read More
Guest Post: Improving the Inventory Process
It’s January – and for many companies, that means going through the rigors of the annual physical inventory. Is your company about to count everything in the warehouse, or just finishing up the process? Are you happy about it?...
Read More