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Plex Manufacturing Blog
Has Manufacturing Forgotten that "Quality Is Free"?
All the recent news about recalls in the motor vehicle industry got me thinking about quality management. In 1979 I was the VP of Manufacturing in a company producing switches and motors for the appliance industry. ...
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Guest Post: Cloud: the Key to Global Sourcing Strategy
Developing a global sourcing model to serve a world-wide customer base as well as to manage global operations in a seamless way, manufacturers have adopted a ‘build anywhere-ship anywhere strategy.’ Adopting a cloud manufacturing system is emerging as the best strategy to quickly enable these capabilities....
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How Cloud Computing Is Enabling An Artisanal Manufacturing Renaissance
A manufacturing revolution is flourishing. Driven by passionate entrepreneurs, this revolution is translating their creativity, craftsmanship and commitment to exceptional quality into products that are changing entire industries. These revolutionaries bring a passion and intensity to every aspect of their businesses....
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How Cloud Computing Is Enabling An Artisanal Manufacturing Renaissance
A manufacturing revolution is flourishing. Driven by passionate entrepreneurs, this revolution is translating their creativity, craftsmanship and commitment to exceptional quality into products that are changing entire industries. These revolutionaries bring a passion and intensity to every aspect of their businesses. ...
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Five Strategies for Streamlining Bidding and Estimating in Aerospace and Defense
In many aerospace and defense companies, bidding and estimating is part art and part science – and one of the powerful series of strategies for driving profitable revenue growth. Add in how complex and different these workflows are across companies and the challenge of attaining greater accuracy and efficiency becomes clear....
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10 Strategies for Making Compliance a Competitive Advantage in Aerospace and Defense
We define quality as a product or service that meets and exceeds customers’ expectations on a consistent basis. Accomplishing this in aerospace and defense — an industry known for its complexity and depth of compliance and quality management requirements — is an ongoing challenge....
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In Search of Speed, Stability and Security in Aerospace and Defense Supply Chains
Staying competitive is often the No. 1 concern for today’s aerospace and defense (A&D) manufacturers. Key components to these efforts include successfully triangulating cost, schedule, security, scope and reliability constraints, all in order to improve supplier orchestration and time to market. But where to start? Many A&D manufacturers agree that the first step in managing these many…
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Five Strategies for Becoming a Demand-Driven Manufacturer Using Cloud Computing
It’s time for more manufacturers to question what being demand-driven really means by looking at their businesses the way their customers do. Having accurate forecasting processes, a finely-tuned sales and operations process (S&OP) or being great at new product development and introductions isn’t enough. These are all great attributes, but they must be synchronized into a cohesive strategy…
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Roundup of Aerospace and Defense Forecasts and Market Estimates for 2013
The paradox of how much to spend on national defense and security versus social programs is a challenge all nations are facing today. Emerging economies are projected to be the most adept at managing this paradox. However, given their relatively higher levels of gross domestic product (GDP) growth versus their slower-growth (and often larger) counterparts — and once you consider that many of…
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Guest Post: Analytics vs. Intelligence – Do You Know the Difference?
Business analytics is often the next evolutionary step after business intelligence (BI), which is all about convenient access to enterprise information in a form that is useful to executives and managers. As I had discussed in a previous blog post, the goal of a useful BI system is to help an organization collect, maintain, and organize business data to develop strategy and build a competitive…
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