Are you ready to manufacture up a storm?

Common questions about manufacturing software

• What is manufacturing software?

  Manufacturing software is a digital tool designed to help you manage, support, and streamline your business's ability to plan, make, and deliver products. It replaces and automates traditional, repeatable manual processes across the business, making your operational activities - in all departments - smoother, faster, and more efficient.

• What are the benefits of manufacturing software?

  In a nutshell, manufacturing software helps you automate and streamline processes that you’d otherwise need to complete manually.  

  The outcome? You save time, optimise available resources and facilities, become more efficient and cost-effective, and have access to the data needed to make faster and better decisions.

• Which software is used for manufacturing?

  While there are numerous niche manufacturing software solutions, these are the broad categories and uses: 

  ERP and MRP (materials requirement planning) 

  Use case: Day-to-day centralised management including financials, estimates and quotations, sales and invoicing, purchasing, supply chain, stock control and production costs - and automating workflows.  

  CRM (customer relationship management) 

  Use case: Manage customer interactions across multiple channels, provide self-help options to reduce and speed up support requirements, track leads and sales opportunities, and power marketing activities.  

  QMS (quality management software) software 

  Use case: Measure, track, and improve the quality of your products and identify gaps and opportunities to improve efficiency and output.  

  Production planning and scheduling 

  Use case: Manage production schedules, plans, capacity, and progress to ensure smooth operations. Scheduling involves assigning tasks based on equipment and resource availability, setup times, and dependencies between jobs. 

  Stock and inventory management  

  Use case: Deliver real-time visibility of inventory, automate reordering and stock count processes, create POs and monitor replenishment levels. 

  SCM (supply chain management) 

  Use case: Oversee the movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from the point of origin to the point of consumption.  

  Demand forecasting  

  Use case: Enable predicting demand throughout the year based on market trends and historical data, so you can plan capacity requirements ahead of time without storing surplus inventory. 

  Order fulfilment and shipping  

  Use case: Automate the steps of order fulfilment, shipping and storage processes,  and the workflows of 3PLs and B2B and B2C warehousing operations.

• What is the best manufacturing software for small businesses?

  The best small business manufacturing software meets your current and future needs. It will do the job it needs to do now (while helping to improve your financial and operational performance and eliminating repeatable manual processes), scale as your business grows, or pivot if you change direction. And it will more than likely be cloud-based.

• How can manufacturing software improve my supply chain operations?

  We’re glad you asked. SCM improves manufacturing operations by simplifying supply chain complexities. It actively manages and coordinates procurement, production, and distribution activities, streamlining the entire process.

  You’ll be better able to make timely, informed decisions, have real-time visibility of your inventory levels, and enable fast communication with suppliers for an uninterrupted flow of materials.