Smart Manufacturing Blog

Welcome to your source for all things smart manufacturing. Whether you’re looking for expert insights, hard data, or actionable tips for your plant floor, we’ve got you covered every week of the year.

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5 Areas Every Supply Chain Leader Should Focus on to Sustain Competitiveness

Hemant Makhija April 17, 2018

As a supply chain leader, you must have a broad understanding of how your entire business flows from sales to procurement to engineering to service. You also need access to a reliable and holistic set of data or you’ll feel more like you’re fighting fires instead of delivering on customer demand. ...

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How to Become a Preferred Manufacturing Supplier

Stu Johnson April 10, 2018

Becoming a preferred supplier is a status most manufacturers want to attain and keep. To achieve this, you need to keep a close eye on quality performance while managing all the work involved with proving compliance. After all, your customers use compliance as a way to weed out lower performing suppliers so the two go hand in hand—even though compliance presents a whole set of headaches for you…

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Does Your Manufacturing ERP Software Do These 4 Things?

Dave Morfas March 19, 2018

Connected manufacturing is a business strategy that leverages cloud computing to harness operational and business data and promises greater visibility, efficiency, control, and customer satisfaction. Our customers have adopted this strategy —and they’ve been able to drive down costs while gaining greater visibility and control....

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5 Things Manufacturers Will Take Away from a First-Time Experience at PowerPlex 2018

Kaitlin Rebella March 12, 2018

If you are a manufacturer and want to improve your operations with the help of technology, you may want to consider attending PowerPlex 2018. Why? This event is the world’s largest gathering of cloud manufacturing professionals who are driving the industry into the future. There are so many things you will take away from your experience attending for the first time, including:...

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What Are the Benefits of Going Digital for Manufacturing Companies?

Stu Johnson March 8, 2018

Every business has its challenges. The challenges you, as a manufacturer, face today include fluctuating customer demand, supply chain planning, inventory cost control, compliance requirements—and a major technology evolution in the form of Industry 4.0....

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7 Common Mistakes Manufacturers Make with ERP Implementations

Dave Morfas March 5, 2018

We’ve learned a lot about what success looks like from implementing the Plex Manufacturing Cloud at thousands of manufacturing plants across the globe. Many of these ERP implementation lessons have come from discovering what not to do....

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How to Determine ROI and Long-Term Value for a Manufacturing ERP System

Stu Johnson March 5, 2018

Modernizing your ERP is a major investment in the long-term success of your manufacturing business. And like other manufacturers, you’re probably worried about the cost, the potential disruption to your business, and the kind of return you can expect from your investment....

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Family-Owned, Precision Metalforming Company Ready for IIoT, Wearables, and What's Next

Dave Morfas February 28, 2018

The phrase “manufacturing leader” often conjures images of large, multinational companies that are household names. Unfortunately, you rarely hear about leaders among smaller, often family-owned operations. Yet small manufacturers make up the majority of the market—98.5% of US manufacturing firms have less than 500 employees1—and have positive effects on local communities for generations....

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Manufacturers: Is it Time to Break Up with Your Legacy ERP?

Dave Morfas February 14, 2018

Break ups are never easy. As a manufacturer, ending your relationship with a legacy ERP system that no longer supports the agility and speed at which you do business can seem complicated. But there are many good reasons to move on. First and foremost, saying goodbye is necessary to the health of your manufacturing operations....

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Digitize, Connect, and Comply: Manufacturers Need a Risk-Based Approach

Stu Johnson February 12, 2018

Manufacturing industry standards have undergone significant changes in recent years in an attempt to respond to quality issues in products that resulted in personal injury, and deaths. You have likely seen the rise of the trend toward risk-based quality compliance that focuses on mitigating quality risks through prevention versus the more traditional approach of detection, or catching quality…

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