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Modern Manufacturing
Plex Manufacturing Blog
BRC Rubber and Plastics Continues Reputation of Dependability with Plex
If you don’t hear much about a company’s supply chain in the news, it typically means that it’s working just as it should. Keeping a supply chain running efficiently (and silently) is solely dependent on suppliers all doing their jobs well—including responding quickly to any changes, updates, or challenges that may arise as part of the day-to-day manufacturing process....
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Taking the Risk Out of Automotive Supplier Compliance
Keeping up with industry requirements and regulations is critical if you’re an automotive supplier/manufacturer. If you don’t, you won’t be competitive for automotive business where compliance to ISO, and soon International Automotive Task Force (IATF), is a requirement not an option....
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Digital Transformation in the Manufacturing Industry: Why Should You Care?
The complexity and pace of customer demands have changed, which means you’ve likely had to evaluate if your manufacturing operations are keeping pace. Relying on manual processes and paper-based information is no longer sustainable if you want to compete. There are more and more companies willing to step in and take your market share....
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How to Operationalize Quality Control on the Shop Floor
Ensuring that quality controls are in place is a never-ending task for operations and quality managers. And it’s especially hard to do if you’re using manual, paper-based documentation. The key is to tie operational performance with a production control plan and work instructions that everyone has access to, and because plans are revised and instructions may change, it's ideal to have online…
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Food and Beverage Manufacturers: Are Your Business Processes and Tools Eating Up Your Revenue?
Do you struggle to gather documentation when you need to show compliance to customer or industry reporting requirements? If so, you’re like many companies still using manual or paper-based quality processes during production....
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What’s It Like at an Award-Winning Manufacturing Plant?
We are proud of our customers. They are leading the manufacturing industry into the future and we’re not the only ones noticing how awesome they are. Many have won Excellence awards for doing what they do best: make amazing things. In 2016 alone, these customers were acknowledged for their manufacturing excellence:...
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What You Don’t Know About Manufacturing Traceability Could Hurt Your Business
You likely use some type of traceability procedure to comply with customer and market mandates and/or for service, safety, and process improvement purposes. However, if you are relying on manual processes, you are likely missing critical steps in the production process where errors may occur. ...
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Why Manufacturing Traceability Is Key to Reducing Errors
Paper records are prone to errors, difficult to manage, and may be impossible to find in a timely manner, like within two hours as the FDA requires. High profile recalls have increased in recent years and culpable manufacturers have paid high costs to their businesses and their brands....
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Error-Proofing Your Manufacturing Business with a Single Source of Truth
Your production operations are likely an automated and complex choreography of people and machines working together to produce products of predictable, repeatable quality. But manufacturing is complex and all the moving parts can be difficult to keep up with, which opens the door to mistakes....
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5 Warning Signs That It’s Time to Consider Cloud ERP for Your Manufacturing Business
We’ve compiled this list of warning signs many of our customers identified before moving to manufacturing ERP in the cloud. You know your systems are floundering when:...
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Before and After: Lean Manufacturing with Better Operational Control
Are your lean efforts focused on delivering a few key results or do you have total operational control to enable continuous improvement? A true commitment to lean manufacturing can result in bottom line improvements throughout your company, not just in production....
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3 Reasons to Transform Your Manufacturing Business Right Now
As a manufacturer, you are always evolving, and today there are some seismic shifts taking place with an unprecedented amount of technology and digital capabilities pushing the next step of your evolution forward. There are three areas that hit home with me and may also resonate with you: automation, innovation, and resource allocation....
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3 Important Ways Cloud ERP Helps You Improve Supply Chain Performance
Market dynamics force you to meet delivery and cost targets while collaborating more closely than ever before. Without visibility of your supply chain, it’s difficult to drive down the cost of operations and reduce your time-to-market. Manufacturing cloud ERP with supply chain planning (SCP) and management gives you greater visibility, agility, and collaboration since your supply chain operations…
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Small to Mid-Sized Manufacturers: It’s Time to Take Advantage of the IIoT Opportunity
Manufacturers across all industries are investing in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)-enabled devices and according to TATA Consultancy, they’re already reaping benefits: an average of 28.5 percent increase in revenues between 2013 and 2014.1 IIoT is not just for the big manufacturing enterprises. Yes, the big companies often have more infrastructure and legacy system dependency than you…
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North American Auto Manufacturing Suppliers: Why You Need to Digitize Your APQP Processes
To be compliant with some automotive OEMs, you must show that you meet advanced product quality planning (APQP) standards—or you can’t compete. If you’re like a lot of the automotive industry suppliers we talk to, producing necessary documentation is mostly likely a time-consuming paper chase between customers, engineering, quality, and others. ...
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