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Plex Manufacturing Blog
Smarter, Together: Connecting Customer Influence to Positive Business Outcomes (Part 4 of 4)
In earlier posts of this series, we talked about Plex’s core principles of customer influence, how we approach influence, and how we capture it:...
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Smarter, Together: Measuring Customer Influence at Plex (Part 3 of 4)
In the first post of this series, we explored the concept of customer influence that permeates the culture here at Plex - how we and our customers influence one another through open dialog and feedback using four essential actions: focus, listen, share, and engage. The second post discussed the platforms in which Plex captures this valuable customer input – the purpose of which is to deliver…
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How OEE and Manufacturing Software Improves Efficiency
“Efficiency” is a broad term in manufacturing. It means producing or doing something while using the least time, resources, and energy. For companies like yours, that may encompass efficiency of motion, the effectiveness of training, the quality of SOPs, or inventory accuracy. But it’s when all those components are working together that operations achieve their highest efficiency....
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Electricity, Sustainability, and Robots: Lessons from CES 2022
Last week I attended the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Vegas, marking the fourth time in six years that a member of R&D has attended the high-tech event. While CES is primarily a consumer-oriented show, the technologies cutting their teeth in the consumer market often end up in the enterprise, or on the shop floor, so CES is critical to our forward-thinking plans and initiatives at Plex…
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Smarter, Together: How Plex Customers Influence Product Direction (Part 2 of 4)
In the first post of this series, I discussed the definition of influence - adapting behavior, products, and processes based on communication, information, and shared understanding - and the four ways that Plex approaches customer influence. Here in part two, I’m going to dive into how we capture and eventually measure it. Importantly, there is no ‘one metric to rule them all’....
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Smarter, Together: What Does Influence Mean to Plex? (Part 1 of 4)
Influence, at its core, is adapting behavior, products, and processes based on communication, information, and shared understanding. In order to influence and be influenced, you have to have a deep understanding - an empathy - for the audience. That comes from having walked a mile (or 20) in another person’s shoes. ...
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How the Efficiency of Inventory Management Affects Your Company
The efficiency of inventory management is crucial to any business. For retailers, accurate inventory means finished goods ready to sell. But for manufacturing companies, warehouse capacity for raw materials and finished goods must be balanced like bookends to ensure that production can take place on time and on schedule....
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Production Monitoring Software: Turning Insight into Action
You can't fix what you can't see. Without access to and analysis of the data resulting from production, manufacturers risk higher costs, poor quality, and mysteriously low equipment utilization. And with global manufacturing competition at an all-time high due to disruption, trade wars, COVID-19, and other issues, companies just can't afford to be in the dark about what's going on in their…
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Feetures and Benefits: Lessons in Change, Growth, and Giving Back
It happens a lot: strangers walk up to Hugh Gaither and take off their shoes. Awkward, right? Not for Hugh. He’s the founder and CEO of Feetures, America’s top running sock brand. And if enthusiastic customers want to show off their Feetures socks, he’s all for it....
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