Because manufacturers are now competing globally, they have shifted production to developing countries where cost of labor and resources is low. Software vendors have combined supply chain management functionality with enterprise resource planning software to stay globally competitive.
A crop of next-generation, Web-based, on-demand, startup quote-to-order systems providers has lately flourished, spearheaded by BigMachines, whereas some traditional vendors that once defined the product configuration space in the 1990s have since left the market.
Managing constraints in any manufacturing or service environment can be difficult. But with the right tools, accurate data, and a skilled user, a management team can manage the throughput of its constraints to support the goals of its company.
In today's competitive engineer-to-order (ETO) manufacturing environment, procuring components on time and within budget is crucial. With rising fuel costs and increased international trade, supply chain management software can help ETO organizations get—and stay—ahead of the competition.
Cash management is an essential business process all organizations must perform to survive. Though cash management uses automation for much of the “grunt” work, it is human intelligence in the financial decision making that does the rest.
Drug manufacturers and retailers are tightening their data collection and reporting processes to meet new US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) guidelines. But which software offerings are best placed to help drug manufacturers comply with the new guidelines?
Business practices have changed dramatically through the years, but credit and collections is still handled like it was back in the 1950s. Fact is, it's way past due to re-think this vital business function given today's business realities.
The right balance of automated processes with paper records and manual, human interaction is necessary to keep costs under control with a flexible yet controlled set of procedures. The strategic software category, governance, risk management, and compliance, is poised to help.
The highly competitive product manufacturing market makes true product lifecycle management (PLM) inevitable. PLM helps companies map product requirements to features, obtain control over product data, preserve product knowledge assets, and enter into the new paradigm of modular product development.
Cost, time, resources, cash, and risk have always been the basics of project management. But as business as a whole becomes more project- rather than process-oriented, management technologies must in turn become more project-centric.