Tag: manufacturing institute

2007 – Spending on Manufacturing Software to Rise Strongly

According to the Institute for Supply Management:

Spending by manufacturing companies on technology — particularly ERP and manufacturing software and integration tools — is poised to accelerate through 2007, stimulated by business issues such as globalization and the need for operational efficiency, according to three recently released reports.

This is good news. Especially for the ERP space. This month, being the year end, vendors are reporting that they are very busy. For a while, there was a drop in activity, but it seems that people are back looking at enterprise software again, especially in manufacturing.

A step by step guide to lean manufacturing

THERE is clearly confusion between Lean, Agile, 6 Sigma, TQM, etc. But what falls under the Lean umbrella and how do you get there? And how do we avoid initiative overload?

The term Lean suggests no fat or a minimum level of fat and applying this to business would imply minimum levels of waste. This suggests that to become lean we must remove waste from the business processes to leave just that activity that adds value. Whilst this would appear logical, actually understanding that which is of value versus that which is not, and then applying this to all aspects of a business is difficult. And often the answers do not lie within the grasp of management running the business, but with people who are closest to the process and better placed to see the value and waste. Read More:A step by step guide to lean manufacturing