As society and businesses change at an ever-increasing rate, the information that companies need to capture and report is also changing, and sometimes the existing information and reporting processes and systems are not up to the task. You want more than just extracting data from your ERP system. You want to get valuable information and you need it to be presented in a format for you and other stakeholders to make decisions about your business or react to competitive market challenges.
To get the full benefit of an ERP system, you need to have information about the health of your company at a glance. Reporting goes beyond the balance sheet and cash flow statements. Executives see multiple benefits from using both financial and non-financial information to make decisions, with the majority agreeing that it would deliver benefits such as more effectively identifying and managing risk, driving improvements in making business decisions and helping to achieve a more forward-looking, longer-term view of performance.
As the global market changes, the manufacturing strategy changes a lot as companies are trying to stay competitive among their competitors. There are many strategies that can be employed, and one of the many that manufacturers use is continuous quality improvement in the manufacturing process. A key element that promotes continuous improvement is the use of just-in-time (JIT) production approach. An approach that depends on good real-time reports for manufacturing projects and includes material, process, labor, overheads and other miscellaneous challenges experienced, at each stage of the build from work order to fulfilling customer quote.
The demand for performance reporting systems may also be driven by the rate of innovation or change occurring at the plant. The reporting system must be designed to capture information into one concise “What did we learn, how do we make the next revision better, and what will produce the best yield?”.
In order to assess and measure the processes, companies also use Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). KPIs are factors that are tracked by companies to analyze their manufacturing processes. These criteria are used to measure success relative to a set of predetermined goals or objectives.
Below are the key benefits of using reporting for KPIs and metrics:
- Work Order – Tracking customer quote according to the produced volume in an inventory system.
- Product Configurator – Make revisions of the Product Configurators by comparing estimated and actual measures.
- Bills of material – Track the number of bills of material for a finished or partially-finished item compared with Product Configurator.
- Production Costs – Measure the overall costs per unit over a production cycle, and see if that makes you profitable regarding the sales price you have set.
- Unit Cost-Based upon the features and options chosen, track & optimize unit costs over time.
Conclusion
Building good reports of all feedbacks at the conclusion of a manufacturing project is invaluable to product success. You get a full lot and serial traceability throughout an item’s lifecycle including estimated vs. actual costs by detailed elements, including labor, material, machine, tools, fixed, and variable overheads. And, if needed, export report data to CSV, EXCEL, PDF or any other format needed.
IWConnect can help you build reports and gain accurate and valuable insights from your data. We’re using a number of methodologies and technologies that can provide great value for the customers with a guaranteed return of investment.
