Article
How to achieve intelligence in end-to-end manufacturing using ERP
May 03, 2022 · Authored by Cindy M. Bratel
Producing products in a globally connected world with pressures on costs, legislative change and sustainability coupled with a technology boom can be a real challenge. IFS Applications™ offer software capabilities to help manufacturers understand their business and automate dead processes, as well as offering the functional depth and breadth required to manage a manufacturing business today.
With IFS ERP, your business can improve operational efficiencies, deliver exceptional customer service and transform data into business value within these major stages of the manufacturing process:
- Planning and scheduling: IFS is extending Artificial Intelligence (AI) supported optimization capabilities to the advanced planning board in order to allow for more efficient utilization of production lines and for optimal fulfilment of production needs.
- Production: Combining historic data already available within IFS with the latest product, order requirements and scenario analysis enables companies to automatically and dynamically schedule or re-schedule production resources.
- Finance: In financial planning, enterprise-wide financial insights available from machine learning let manufacturers plan and make commercial forecasts with more certainty. Additionally, IFS enables pattern-matching to help quickly highlight any budgeting and forecasting inaccuracies.
- Procurement: AI can help optimize a general purchase strategy, making it more dynamic and less reactive. Decisions to anticipate or delay purchases can be made by analyzing market trends, creating more dynamic and effective inventory management to streamline procurement.
- Warehousing and distribution: Orchestrated by IFS data, IFS has robotic materials handling. For example, a client’s robot fleet automatically fetches and delivers heavy raw materials to the manufacturing production line and takes the finished goods into the warehouse using put-away logic.
- Customer relationship management: IFS implementation is currently helping companies in call-centers and field service environments exploit chat bots, self-service technology and intelligent process automation to increase customer satisfaction and make call handlers more effective.
- Product lifecycle management: Intelligence and automation in product lifecycle management can help you learn what operational data should be captured and how it can create business value. It can also detect and reduce errors as well as determine if the data is properly stored in the ERP or needs to be drawn from external sources.
For more information on how Baker Tilly and IFS can unleash new paths for business growth, contact us today.