Top 6 Tech Trends Your Business Can’t Ignore

The manufacturing industry has experienced unprecedented change after the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit. But new technologies are helping forward-thinking firms to drive levels of efficiencies and cope with new order volumes, increased product variations, rapid product development, and ever-expanding distribution networks.

Choosing the right technology is key to the future success of your manufacturing company. Here are six tech trends you can’t ignore to enhance cross-company collaboration, process execution, and operational excellence:

1. Real-time data management

The emergence of Big Data has changed the way manufacturing companies operate. Access to real-time information is critical to understanding the core operations of the office and plant-floor processes.

By capturing, storing and analysing data, businesses can improve strategic decision-making by tracking crucial stages in the production cycle. Reports that used to take weeks to generate are now published instantly on interactive dashboards to help critical stakeholders react faster with more confidence.

2. Optimised production resources

By storing critical manufacturing data within an integrated system, manufacturers can monitor throughputs to respond faster to unexpected bottlenecks and reduce unwanted downtime. Multiple resource types can be optimised simultaneously with the right software in place.

In an integrated system, both material availability and manufacturing capacity can be scheduled to calculate viable delivery dates for customers, enabling companies to plan large numbers of short-run production orders.

3. Product margin calculator

Manufacturing firms are often the least confident in their pricing decisions. For process manufacturers especially, it can be tricky calculating complex bills of materials. Manufacturers cannot calculate actual costs per unit without confidence or automated cost tracking.

Innovative manufacturing technology will capture, assign and compare actual and standard costs for all finished goods. Manufacturers can quickly boost their bottom lines by capturing actual costs at the batch level with granular visibility. Modern solutions can capture everything from prices of materials, labour, machine and overhead costs, plus any additional needs for co-products or by-products – and the impact of wastage. Having the right software to calculate accurate item costs quickly, product prices, and the margins on these help to increase profits when creating quotes for customers.

4. Easily managing BOMs & lifecycles

Constantly changing bills of materials can often lead to incorrect components finding their way into production lines. This leads to items being unnecessarily scraped or reworked and results in unpredictive pricing and longer wait times for demanding customers.

BOM changes should always be a strategic initiative. Advanced manufacturing solutions now offer the option to manage several active BOMs at any time, with updates automatically circulated to relevant departments.

5. Reducing excess inventory

Investing in dead inventory is something all manufacturers should aim to do at all costs. Yet the actual costs of inventory items are often inaccurate, underestimated or incomplete.

With powerful supply and demand software at your fingertips, inventory items can be balanced to ensure the right components and quantities are in your warehouse. Finding the right balance will make quick and noticeable improvements to your bottom line.

6. Meeting industry standards

The global need for manufacturers to focus on compliance and traceability is increasing significantly. By mitigating the risk of product recalls, reducing overall costs, and transparent traceability of processes, manufacturers can substantially reduce inefficiencies in their supply chains.

Companies can dramatically improve overall product quality levels and traceability standards by using a system that controls quality control and provides a full audit and electronic documentation trail,

SEIDOR works with growing manufacturing firms to simplify operations and automate key production processes with our advanced manufacturing software solutions. If you’re being held back by outdated or legacy production software, find out more today about our affordable manufacturing solutions or if you'd like to speak to one of our team, please call us on 01 697 1818.