Industrial machinery manufacturers bird's eye view of Industry 4.0/ Advanced manufacturing/intelligent manufacturing. They see how manufacturing is evolving rapidly through customers' changing operations and the need for "smart", data-enabled, new industrial machinery connected to ERP systems.
With the changing operations and needs of customers, the manufacturing industry is experiencing rapid development
What do industrial equipment manufacturers notice at the pinnacle of manufacturing? How does what they see challenge them, and how does an advanced enterprise resource planning solution, or an industrial machinery manufacturer's ERP, provide them with wings strong enough to soar through changing weather conditions? As we will explain, we just want to say that ERP can give you wings.
Meet new customer needs
No two words define Industry 4.0 better than "personalization" and "agility.
No wonder a 2016 Aberdeen Group survey found that industrial machinery manufacturers were being asked by customers to "roll out products quickly" and provide "bespoke and sophisticated products." Complex engineering assets provide profitable growth opportunities for industrial machinery manufacturers who know how best to work with customers and efficiently manage large data sets. What is needed to support this complex and customized collaboration? ERP software that supports customization and flexibility. Industrial machinery manufacturers must have flexibility before they can offer it to their customers, and industrial machinery manufacturers' ERP software enables this flexibility and interconnection.
For example, computer-aided design (CAD) software connected through ERP and comparative quotation technology solidifies the necessary link between equipment manufacturers and their customers. These interlocking solutions capture important information, create visual specifications, intelligently communicate relevant inventory/fulfillment data, and secure sales by compressing lead times and quote times for next-generation industrial machinery. ERP makes it all seamless, enabling you to quickly connect with your customers to meet their needs. ERP can act as a bridge between the two parties, especially when it comes to CAD.
Expansion into the New Territories
Automation eliminates the need for manual labor for skilled workers, so they can solve more pressing problems such as strategic planning and strengthening customer relationships. That said, never before has such a wide range of industries, occupations, and processes been able to be automated.
Eight out of ten machine manufacturers have already automated.
According to a survey by the Manufacturers Productivity and Innovation Alliance, 83% of manufacturers have automated at least one aspect of production in the past five years. Three-quarters of respondents also plan to automate again or for the first time in the next three years. Whatever these businesses decide to automate, industrial machinery makers want to be ready to lend a hand (even if that hand is a robot). The connection to the customer's data and systems, as well as internal data and systems, is made possible by the ERP of the industrial machinery manufacturer.
New markets can present you with a host of obstacles: more materials are needed, more nodes in the supply chain, more needs to be considered, and more economies to focus on. What do all these issues have in common? They introduce risks to planning, production, and customer satisfaction respectively.
In addition, making your ERP system cloud-based can reduce your investment in expensive servers, IT infrastructure, large IT teams, and software updates. All of these investments are managed by your cloud ERP provider, keeping you ahead of the curve while keeping your IT costs under control. This is what agility looks like. You simply add the functionality you need, and you don't tie up money in an expensive, underutilized on-premises IT infrastructure. Again, to provide flexibility to demanding customers, you need to remain flexible, and ERP from industrial machinery manufacturers can help you achieve this.