Looking ahead to a successful Autumn

As summer draws to a close, manufacturers across the UK are looking ahead to the final part of the year.

It’s a critical period for the industry. Last year, firms produced £155.6bn worth of output in Q4, both reversing the summer slump and increasing production by 0.26%. While food manufacturers led the way, metal products and machinery manufacturers also increased output by 1%.

As we have seen in our Summer Rewind blog series, the quiet summer months are the perfect time to make efficiencies and prepare for growth as demand ramps up. From automation to using data to make better decisions, the efficiencies you make today will put you in a stronger position to take advantage of the opportunities that come your way over the coming months. Our summer series has shown you how a modern ERP can help you achieve this. Here’s a quick recap of what we’ve learned so far.

Use the quiet summer months to reset your business

The holiday season gives you the space to get your house in order, grow your business, adopt new technologies and prepare for the final quarter. Use the time efficiently to get ahead of your competitors:

• Keep a track of order status and integrate with your suppliers’ systems to improve visibility using your ERP.
• Ridder iQ’s production planning module can help you organise jobs and personnel
• Analyse your sales/production data to predict demand or trends for the upcoming year
• Carry out maintenance and internal improvements to minimise disruption during the busier periods
• Undertake complete training or deliver targeted training for individual teams/employees

Read more on how to navigate the holiday season.

Make sure your shop floor is operating at peak performance

Use the summer to evaluate shop floor performance, identifying areas to improve such as disconnected departments or poor collaboration, and spotting opportunities to introduce new technology or automation.

But without accurate data, it’s hard to get a true picture of your shop floor.

ECI’s cloud-based Ridder iQ stores real-time data from your shop floor including costs, orders and materials, so you have full visibility into your operations. Use this data to drive improvements across your business and monitor the progress of jobs including any bottlenecks or inefficiencies.

Read more about how an ERP can help you improve performance.

Take stock of what you’ve got – and optimise it

You may not have time for stocktake when you’re busy producing orders, so summer is ideal for optimising your inventory and reducing excess or SLOB (slow moving and obsolete) stock. But doing this manually with a paper-based system or spreadsheets can take days or weeks – and you’ll have to do it again the following year.

With an ERP, you can track and monitor stock continuously because it offers real-time visibility into materials, parts, components and finished products – as well as buffer stock. A barcode scanner is also an efficient way to record stock during your stocktake because it speeds up the process significantly.

Read more on how an ERP enhances stock management.

Build your digital capabilities

New technology like AI is becoming necessary to futureproof your organisation. Test and implement it during factory shutdown when it’s less likely to cause disruption and you have the time for testing/feedback.

Whether you’re ready to invest in new technology, or want to get prepared for it, an ERP is essential because it contains data from across your organisation. It also automates processes like data entry and reporting, and offers data-driven insights to help you make quick, informed decisions. A cloud-based system can be scaled up or down depending on your activity and it can be accessed from any device with an internet connection.

Read more on how an ERP helps you digitise.

Gearing up for growth – overcoming the challenges

Despite the ongoing challenges manufacturers are facing, around two-thirds of SME manufacturers plan to grow. But it’s essential you have good processes in place to scale up and tackle challenges like siloed data or product quality, which could hold you back.

An ERP brings all of your data together, so you can make decisions for growth and identify new opportunities. It’s worth investing in a cloud-based system which grows with you because you won’t need to make any upfront technology investment.

Read more about how an ERP helps you grow.

Put yourself in pole position

The new movie, F1 is one of the most talked-about films this summer – and there’s plenty we can learn from motorsports.

For manufacturers, the film reinforces the importance of speed, modern technology and good collaboration – the three factors driving every successful team. To overtake your competitors, departments across your organisation need to work in tandem.

An ERP combines your business processes, eliminating silos and making information instantly available to the relevant departments. Planning teams can monitor production, deploying more team members if needed, while leaders can make decisions backed by data. Advanced features like digital work orders, BOM management and automated material requirements planning, also helps your team work smarter and faster.

Read more on how an ERP speeds up production.

An ERP sets you up for the future, while improving efficiency and saving costs. By implementing it during the summer, you’ll have a good time to test it and train your team, ensuring adoption is a success.

Invest in Ridder iQ this summer.