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Plex Manufacturing Blog
How Innovation in Manufacturing Can Help You Leverage the Benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
As a manufacturer, you need to do more. Not only to grow, but because your customers are demanding more of you—year after year. Even if you’re focusing on continuous improvement, you may need to add in manufacturing innovation to differentiate because it is a certainty that your competitors are doing more....
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PowerPlex 2018 – Back to Detroit
Introduction After hosting PowerPlex 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia, PowerPlex 2018 returns to its roots in Detroit, Michigan, one of the nation’s biggest manufacturing hubs. CEO Don Clarke welcomed the audience in his Opening Keynote, “Makers Making an Impact,” recognizing the Plex community of manufacturing professionals who are positioned at the intersection of manufacturing and technology....
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PowerPlex 2018 – Innovation in Manufacturing Keynote
As Jerry Foster, Plex CTO, sees it, “all in on innovation today will own the competition tomorrow.” However, innovation isn’t necessarily the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about manufacturing. We tend to think more about technology companies as being innovative – or companies that have introduced new business models such as Amazon, Uber or Airbnb....
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General Data Protection Regulation and Plex Customers
The European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is set to take effect May 25, 2018. Now is a good time to discuss the capabilities Plex offers to help customers meet their GDPR obligations. What is GDPR?...
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5 Areas Every Supply Chain Leader Should Focus on to Sustain Competitiveness
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
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?
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
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?
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
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
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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Manufacturers: Is it Time to Break Up with Your Legacy ERP?
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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Manufacturers: How Connected is Your Supply Chain Planning?
Unless you have supernatural abilities, you’re like most humans who can’t accurately predict the future. But as a manufacturer—you need an effective way to “see” into future customer demand so you can allocate the right amount of inventory, optimize production, and keep customers happy....
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Plex Customers Put Wearables and Augmented Reality to Work on the Shop Floor
I’m always amazed at what Plex customers are doing when it comes to advanced technology. Manufacturers, after all, have led us through major technology revolutions that have forever changed the world around us. And our customers continue to look forward as they actively explore how to use wearable and augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) technology on the shop floor....
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Modernizing Your ERP: What Every Manufacturer Should Know
If your company has an ERP and you’re struggling with lack of visibility into your manufacturing processes, lack of trust in the data, increased downtime, and rising costs—it may be time to modernize. Consumer demand is harder than ever to predict....
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Maximize Your Investment in the Plex Manufacturing Cloud with Continuous Improvement
Once you’ve chosen, implemented, and worked with the Plex Manufacturing Cloud, you still aren’t “done” with it. Now it’s time to dig in and discover how to really maximize your investment. Just as your business continues to innovate and move forward, your Plex system will deliver updates that you can use to drive even more efficiency and results. ...
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Ready to Turn Your Biggest Manufacturing Challenges into Opportunities in 2018?
Every business comes with its challenges. But, what if you could take your biggest manufacturing challenges—the ones you grapple with day-in and day-out—and turn them into competitive advantages?...
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What is Connected Manufacturing and Why Should You Care About It?
Manufacturing is increasingly becoming part of the digital economy. Even if you are doing good as a business, you still need to respond to the changes taking place in your industry: shop floor (industrial) automation, additive manufacturing, lot sizes of one, cloud computing, analytics, mobility, and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Because if you don’t, you risk losing your competitive…
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5 Steps to Gain Organizational Buy-In for Your ERP Project
When your company has determined that it’s the right time to look at an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, the first question that typically pops up goes like this: “Is our investment justified?” In other words, you’ll need to go about getting buy-in across your company because ERP touches every facet of your company. From our experience, this effort involves a few steps that are…
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5 Operational Challenges Manufacturers Can Address with Connected Manufacturing
You grapple with operational challenges every day. It’s the nature of manufacturing with so many variables that go into making products. Getting a handle on these challenges is also do or die, because production must continue to meet customer demands. So, you do whatever is necessary to get inventory under control, respond to audits, reduce waste, and manage quality....
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