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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. 

You've heard it countless times – the Internet of Things (IoT) is going to change the way business is conducted. As consumers, we can see this unfolding in our everyday lives. Shoppers love the flexibility of checking out when they are ready from an associate with an iPad that already knows what they’re purchasing vs. waiting in line for a cashier. As business professionals, then, the question is: when can we use IoT in our organization’s operations?

Like it or not, system migrations often come with the territory in today’s rapidly evolving technology landscape. Often they are perceived of as a necessary evil. Nobody wants to rock a steady boat – things are working now and a migration just opens the door for a range of risks and unknowns.

Effective supply chain management (SCM) in today’s technologically-advanced manufacturing environment can be a daunting task. However, according to Dr. Donald Radliff, executive director of Georgia Tech’s Supply Chain and Logistics Institute, efficient supply chain and logistics operations backed by a solid supply chain strategy can reduce costs by as much as 10-40 percent. The trick is following ten rules for successful supply chain management: 

Many enterprises considering the latest in ERP systems mistakenly think it has to be an either/or solution – a reliable Tier 1 on-premise system or an agile cloud-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) ERP solution. 

Many business professionals talk about "operational excellence", but few understand that it actually consists of several elements that must be successfully implemented and integrated to be successful. If you ask a dozen business professionals to define Operational Excellence, you’ll get a dozen different answers, such as “it’s about process quality and making perfect parts every time,“ or “it’s applying lean tools everywhere to eliminate waste.” Perhaps one of the best definitions I’ve seen is also one of the simplest, from business consulting firm Duggan Associates: “It is when each and every employee can see the flow of value to the customer and fix that flow when it breaks down.”