On February 6th Global Shop Solutions will be giving our first quarterly webcast. Each quarter, one of these webcasts will be highlighting a business goal and, how Global Shop One-System ERP Solutions™ can help businesses achieve that goal. This week’s topic is “Trust Global Shop for Increased Sales.” (more…)
Purchasing is highly efficient in Global Shop’s ERP Software. GS Automated Purchasing users experience streamlined inventory management and time spent on purchasing is cut in half! Through the use of these three innovative tools companies are fully capable of streamlining their purchasing system (more…)
In preparation for our appearance in The Manufacturing ERP Experience, Global Shop Solutions paid a visit to one of our oldest and favorite customers, Wilshire Precision Products. Currently in its third generation with Global Shop Solutions One-System ERP Solutions™, we couldn’t think of anyone more qualified to present the benefits derived from implementing our software.
“Global Shop is a huge part of our success”, praises Tom Lewis, President of Wilshire. Tom goes on to describe how rapidly he’s watched his business expand after implementing Global Shop Solutions in 1986. “Our business has easily increased by at least 30% in the past few years without adding any new personnel,” (more…)
Why is having a single system enterprise resource planning (ERP) software solution the most desirable approach to manufacturing control? The answer is simple, but not always evident: It’s because everyone gets on the same page. Data gets entered one time and one time only. Time is not wasted trying to find information. You see the whole picture so that you can spend your time improving the business and increasing sales.
It starts with generating an estimate, which in most cases, only takes a few seconds. Then a customer quote with automatic multiple requests for vendor quotes. Upon receipt of the order, a sales order gets generated with a few keystrokes. (more…)
Can ERP really improve shop labor performance, making a big difference on cost, quality and on-time delivery? Yes, a lot more than you think. Envision a shop where all clock (payroll) time is accounted for on a job, whether direct or indirect, and there is almost no input – only biometric identification and selection of the job recommended on a touch screen. All documentation, including prints, quality instructions, setup sheets, are at your fingertips. Some companies experience a 25% improvement in labor costs, typically resulting in enhanced on-time delivery and improved quality.
Here is where many manufacturers using enterprise resource planning software (ERP) realize their quickest and biggest return on investment. How? (more…)
Looking at the title of this blog entry, you may ask yourself, ‘Why are we talking about increased sales? Isn’t enterprise resource planning (ERP) about cost reduction and streamlining operations?’.
Well, stop and think about delivering a part or assembly with a 99+% on-time delivery with impeccable quality. Then think about how much time is freed up because quoting is more accurate and easily generated. Because it requires very little input generating a sales order, work order, packing list or invoice. Because purchasing and scheduling are automated. Because shop floor control is easy to use with minimum input and very little, if any, paper. And so on, and so forth. (more…)
Is it possible to get a complete, fully integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) software package where the whole process is ISO and QS-9000 compliant? They’re some ERP systems out there that do this, and through them you can achieve the sort of compliance levels you need to document and exhibit ISO and QS-9000. Or, rather, you should be able to do so.
ISO certification requires documenting what you do and proving that you do what you document. Some ERP software has complete traceability including lot, heat and serial number for getting a real edge on quality audits. You can also catch non-performance before it really starts on designated screens in real-time or on each day’s early morning reports. (more…)
Nothing’s small when you own and operate a small business. This is especially true when your small business just happens to be in the manufacturing sector. Small manufacturers encounter many of the same challenges that medium and large companies do, including pressure from competitors; global economic volatility; the need to attract and retain new customers; and the need to reduce expenses and increase profitability.
However, many small manufacturers have myriad other issues to contend with that big businesses don’t have, or have an easier time facilitating by virtue of economic scaling. Certainly, in today’s tight credit markets, limited access to financial resources is a key hurdle for small businesses. This is exacerbated by increasingly higher operational costs and the constant difficulty in finding qualified people to work for you. (more…)
By their nature, job shops are often, as they say, “all over the place” with what they do. Usually, they have to perform multiple tasks with limited resources. Diverse orders come and go with great speed. Their production requirements are such that each order could be something new, with engineering changes often coming on the heels of the order submission to the floor. With so much coming and going, scheduling and tracking is a vital function in job shops. When an order is delayed or otherwise neglected, there are usually heavy costs associated with it—loss of revenue, loss of material, loss of time, and loss of customers. It’s that last one that’s the real biggie.
Tracking software enables companies to track production items from sales order to shipping (and sometimes beyond), and also identify their costs. This type of manufacturing tool works real-time to track and record each and every transaction within the process, ensuring accountability for all the resources that are used in the job shop. In the best systems that are part of larger enterprise resource planning (ERP) software systems, everything in the job shop can be tracked—from the labor and resources used for the job, to the status of the job, and the status of the shipment. (more…)
Over the past three decades enterprise resource planning systems (ERP) have become ubiquitous throughout the manufacturing industries. They have become foundational for most companies looking for an application that enables them to perform basic business operations in the most efficient way. At the other end of the needs spectrum, ERP packages also incorporate a large amount of industry specific business functionalities that ensure the costs of such systems are not as exorbitant as is usually the case in completely custom software packages. In short, the vertical hierarchy of ERP software helps organizations adopt the system faster and too a large extent help provide growing organizations by provide a framework of processes for their business.
One of the distinct advantages of using a robust ERP system is that it is an integrated solution for the entire business. Typically, before implementing an ERP system, a manufacturing business (large or small) will employ multiple and disparate operations software systems that usually don’t communicate with each other very well. Additionally, custom-built applications not only become difficult to manage, but they also pose unique challenges in terms of upgrade or adaptation to the latest technology standards. (more…)
