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Covering everything from production volume to the complexities of warehouse management, these metrics are a vital tool for managing the complex workflows of a manufacturing operation. 

PSGi works closely with our clients to manage the software necessary to utilizing metrics as effectively as possible. This blog provides a quick introduction: you can view our comprehensive guide here.

“While manufacturing is a historically slow-moving and conservative industry, COVID-19 has created new challenges that are requiring manufacturers to innovate at speeds they never have before. Supply chain disruptions, social distancing on high-touch assembly lines, limited ability to travel and the need for oversight add significant complexity to today’s processes.” -- Forbes

Effective, resilient supply chain management has always required the capability to respond to a changing marketplace. Disruptions force businesses to adapt. And doing so successfully requires getting some very complex decisions right. “Moving to this supplier to Asia will decrease components costs, but how will shipping, tariffs, and lead time be affected?”

The COVID-19 crisis is forcing businesses across the globe to adapt to sudden operational disruption. IT, tasked with supporting the rapid, largely unplanned move to remote work, is truly on the front lines of the
effort to adapt day-to-day ops to a “socially distant” economy. 

Existing disaster recovery (DR) plans simply didn’t envision this type of scenario. The most common way to conceptualize the “disaster” in IT DR is a physical threat to your technology infrastructure: events like a flood, fire, or a storm that destroys key servers. In this context, businesses need a plan for scaling up alternative infrastructure as fast as possible. 

The pace of change for ERP software is often dominated by urgent business imperatives: a new acquisition demands a major migration or implementation project, a new customer introduces a sudden need for more expansive reporting, or a new government regulation requires more robust data protection measures.

International trade conflict has brought about a global resurgence of tariffs and other trade restrictions. This trend has driven reams of high-level commentary on the macroeconomic effects of these disruptions to existing international commerce flows. 

In this blog, we set aside that high-level policy discussion to take a look at the practical business problems created for manufacturers by tariffs—and how technology can be used to respond.

Manufacturing companies face pressure from just about every direction to keep their business moving forward despite huge IT challenges like tight budgets, retiring staff and limited resources. But for those who are using a legacy system transitioning to a new ERP system can be an even greater challenge. 

Industrial Internet of Things, Manufacturing 4.0, Smart Manufacturing, The Fourth Industrial Revolution and Industry 4.0 — these are all pseudonyms that generally refer to the same concept — technology that enables connected operations and production systems that can predict or adapt to changes in the facility or broader environment to provide a better outcome. It is a mouthful with powerful implications. The advantages of a full connected production and delivery system with automated data collection is very appealing to those in the food and beverage industry.  

Disaster recovery can be a business lifesaver. It can also lead to a realization that great technology alone isn’t enough without the right test plan.

Here we’ll share the story of two organizations who recently implemented the same disaster recovery solutions, each one harnessing the same IBM i technology. Both organizations planned for a seamless failover with near zero impact to the users. Yet the results for each organization were drastically different. Why?

Quite often, the terms value chain management and supply chain management are used interchangeably. While they overlap and are ultimately complementary, they are in fact two separate yet critical terms that impact your organizational success.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is the cornerstone of virtually every manufacturing business, enabling it to plan, allocate, and track the resources required to manufacture and distribute products cost-efficiently. To accomplish all this, it is essential to choose and utilize an ERP system that can enable greater efficiency and increased automation throughout the manufacturing process while providing information that can drive better decision-making and ultimately profitability.