Signs that you Need an ERP System - Inventory Management
This is the first segment in a series of blogs explaining some of the main reasons manufacturing businesses seek out (or should seek out) an ERP system. Inventory management is a common problem facing growing manufacturing companies. Managing inventory efficiently is vital to business operations.
As your business grows, inventory management becomes more and more important. If you run out of a product or parts or raw materials to make a particular product, sales of that product will cease in the short term, and prospective customers will seek out other sellers. The end result is you potentially lose a longer term relationship with prospective buyers.
It's not uncommon for sales, customer, and inventory information to reside in separate locations or discrete systems within an organization. The problem is that this structure creates difficulties for your sales and customer service teams as well as management. When a customer calls into to check on the status of their order, it can be cumbersome to obtain accurate order status information.
So what does an ERP system do to solve this problem and make your business more efficient and responsive to your customers? With a properly implemented ERP system, employees in each of your departments will be able to access accurate information pertaining to order, shipping, and payment status on demand. With the help of MRP and your warehouse management system (WMS), you'll know exactly when to order raw materials, parts, and components or issue a work order to keep up with demand.
With a single ERP system in place, customer needs can be met efficiently and that simple call to check in on an order's status becomes an easy task for one person to complete, saving your company from needing to use additional resources. The end result is that your organization develops a reputation for being responsive, efficient, reliable, and intelligent.
