Four Ways ERP Can Help Manufacturing Processes Post-COVID
Since the ’60s, businesses have used Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to align their business processes. But what does COVID mean for ERP, and can ERP be at the heart of agile working for post-coronavirus manufacturers?
As we explain below, there are four ways ERP can contribute to the resilience and reinvention of your post-coronavirus operation.
1. ERP creates flexible supply chains
COVID affected procurement, labor, sourcing, and logistics. Flexible supply chains help manage challenges like these by using external data to improve demand and supply forecasting.
For many businesses, the time to build a digital supply chain and become a smart, Industry 4.0 manufacturer is now. With the cloud, you can take advantage of real-time visibility, which is a real asset when managing supply chains.
2. Traceability leads to supply chain resilience
COVID accelerates interest in digital technologies as it becomes more difficult to perform traditional offline third-party food auditing and verification. With many consumers now eating at home rather than at restaurants, there’s an increased demand on manufacturers to provide safe food products directly to customers.
In increasingly variable supply chains, few sectors will honestly be able to say that they can trace every component of a product without digital assistance.
3. ERP and social distancing at work
COVID has put remote working and collaborative technology at the forefront of business processes and planning. Next-generation cloud ERP is at the center of workplace reinvention, allowing much of the work previously done on-site to now be performed remotely. ERP gives remote staff access to the information they need, no matter where they are.
4. Lean manufacturing leads the way to operational efficiencies
We are now in a cost-cutting era. Businesses are focusing on core activities and trimming the fat from operations to secure as long a financial runway as possible.
Lean processes reduce waste and minimize cost across the operation. If you’re looking to optimize:
- inventory holdings
- transport and distribution costs
- raw materials pricing and usage
- the time and motion involved in production processes
…or to obtain the data that will trim costs, ERP should be your starting point.
ERP is a way to bring data together – unlocking efficiencies to improve collaboration, increase teamwork, and build significant profits. Looking to implement an ERP solution? Yeo & Yeo Technology can help. Contact us to learn more.
Information used in this article was provided by our partners at Sage.