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Industrial Manufacturing
Plex Manufacturing Blog
Technology and Growth: Which Is the Chicken and Which Is the Egg?
American manufacturing is definitely bouncing back. This year’s growth is expected to exceed both 2012 rates and GDP increases. There’s no question that things are looking up. There’s also no doubt that manufacturers are exploring new tools to manage growth, including advanced technologies....
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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....
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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....
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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....
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Guest Post: What Are We Reshoring?
We live in a global market. But when it comes to unskilled assembly-type jobs with a high labor content, let’s be honest: These are gone from the U.S. forever. Any of this kind of work that comes back to North America will only be because automation removes the labor content, since our robots can perform “manual” labor cheaper and more reliably than untrained or unskilled workers in other parts…
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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. ...
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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?...
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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. ...
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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?...
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Cloud ERP Implementations: One Year Later
As you plan ahead for your manufacturing company in 2013, take a long, hard look at your systems. Traditional enterprise systems often take many months, or years, before they’re fully implemented – then more months and years before they make any real impact on overall business performance....
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