Smart Manufacturing Blog

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Modern Manufacturing

Plex Manufacturing Blog

How to Become a Preferred Manufacturing Supplier

Stu Johnson April 10, 2018

Becoming a preferred supplier is a status most manufacturers want to attain and keep. To achieve this, you need to keep a close eye on quality performance while managing all the work involved with proving compliance. After all, your customers use compliance as a way to weed out lower performing suppliers so the two go hand in hand—even though compliance presents a whole set of headaches for you…

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Manufacturers: Is it Time to Break Up with Your Legacy ERP?

Dave Morfas February 14, 2018

Break ups are never easy. As a manufacturer, ending your relationship with a legacy ERP system that no longer supports the agility and speed at which you do business can seem complicated. But there are many good reasons to move on. First and foremost, saying goodbye is necessary to the health of your manufacturing operations....

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Digitize, Connect, and Comply: Manufacturers Need a Risk-Based Approach

Stu Johnson February 12, 2018

Manufacturing industry standards have undergone significant changes in recent years in an attempt to respond to quality issues in products that resulted in personal injury, and deaths. You have likely seen the rise of the trend toward risk-based quality compliance that focuses on mitigating quality risks through prevention versus the more traditional approach of detection, or catching quality…

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Manufacturers: How Connected is Your Supply Chain Planning?

Hemant Makhija January 29, 2018

Unless you have supernatural abilities, you’re like most humans who can’t accurately predict the future. But as a manufacturer—you need an effective way to “see” into future customer demand so you can allocate the right amount of inventory, optimize production, and keep customers happy....

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Maximize Your Investment in the Plex Manufacturing Cloud with Continuous Improvement

Kristin van Duelman January 8, 2018

Once you’ve chosen, implemented, and worked with the Plex Manufacturing Cloud, you still aren’t “done” with it. Now it’s time to dig in and discover how to really maximize your investment. Just as your business continues to innovate and move forward, your Plex system will deliver updates that you can use to drive even more efficiency and results. ...

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Ready to Turn Your Biggest Manufacturing Challenges into Opportunities in 2018?

Dave Morfas December 21, 2017

Every business comes with its challenges. But, what if you could take your biggest manufacturing challenges—the ones you grapple with day-in and day-out—and turn them into competitive advantages?...

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What is Connected Manufacturing and Why Should You Care About It?

Hemant Makhija December 14, 2017

Manufacturing is increasingly becoming part of the digital economy. Even if you are doing good as a business, you still need to respond to the changes taking place in your industry: shop floor (industrial) automation, additive manufacturing, lot sizes of one, cloud computing, analytics, mobility, and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Because if you don’t, you risk losing your competitive…

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5 Operational Challenges Manufacturers Can Address with Connected Manufacturing

Dave Morfas November 30, 2017

You grapple with operational challenges every day. It’s the nature of manufacturing with so many variables that go into making products. Getting a handle on these challenges is also do or die, because production must continue to meet customer demands. So, you do whatever is necessary to get inventory under control, respond to audits, reduce waste, and manage quality....

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Manufacturing Chaos to Calm: Operationalize Quality

Stu Johnson November 8, 2017

When it comes to quality management, our friends at the fictitious Edge Manufacturing are grappling with lack of visibility and control. Edge manages quality control on paper. So, it’s hard to verify whether quality procedures have taken place in a timely manner or whether operators just check boxes to move materials onto the next step to avoid production halts. ...

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Manufacturing Chaos to Calm: Gaining Control Over Inventory

Stu Johnson October 26, 2017

Edge Manufacturing is in a bind. Their largest customer, ABC Corporation, just ordered 210 solar-powered attic fans to be delivered by the end of this month—ABC’s biggest order ever. Edge’s inventory manager, Jim, isn’t sure the warehouse has enough raw material to fill that many orders. And, there’s only one way to find out: pull up spreadsheets....

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