Signs It’s Time to Upgrade to a Manufacturing ERP Solution
Your business is evolving and with it you’re outgrowing your business accounting software.
Maybe you have an accounting system (like QuickBooks), a basic ERP (enterprise resource planning) solution, or even something you’ve stitched together yourself and are calling an ERP system. In any case, that may no longer be enough.
As your business grows, so do your needs. Yet, the decision to adopt a manufacturing ERP solution is an investment. How can you tell if you’re ready to take the plunge?
Here are some common challenges our clients have experienced that indicated it was time to find the right manufacturing ERP solution:
- You’re losing efficiency and profitability
While your business expenses rise as you grow, your revenue should also be on the rise. You shouldn’t face a steep increase in operational expenses that you can’t manage. As you scale, you need a business software solution that allows you to streamline operational expenses and optimize inventory. This necessitates an accurate cashflow forecast, including accounts receivable and accounts payable predictions. An ERP solution will even tell you the average number of days each customer takes to pay, flag special supplier terms, and more.
As you grow you want to bring in more profit, not less, and poor financial control is one of the biggest signs you’ve outgrown your current accounting system.
- You need to comply with industry regulations and/or require more traceability
With consumers demanding more transparency, industry compliance becomes more complex, meaning your own systems and processes must scale to alleviate the complexity. In addition, traceability has become mandatory for many manufacturers (especially those in food and beverage) and ERP allows those manufacturers to trace a product from design to post-sale.
As ERP solutions have evolved, regulatory compliance capabilities have also improved. It enables businesses to have improved visibility and transparency through tracking material flow. While spreadsheets and paper-based tracking used to be the norm, using that method to make sure you’re being industry-compliant is much less efficient than using an ERP system — and often less accurate. If industry compliance is taking up too much of your staff’s time and company resources – or you’re finding it difficult to even stay compliant – it’s time to make a change.
- You have limited visibility and control of your inventory
Poor and inadequate inventory visibility is a catalyst for adopting an ERP solution.
Supply chain managers must be able to predict demand, allocate resources, and keep stock levels optimized while being cost-effective. This is particularly important if you have multiple warehouses, plants, store locations, or sales channels (such as a bricks-and-mortar location and an eCommerce store).
ERP allows you to monitor all of it in real-time from one portal, creating a single source of truth By enabling automated processes, you can track the movement of each inventory item throughout its lifecycle no matter where that item is located. This allows you to see real-time inventory levels, saving you time, overhead, and crafting a better customer experience (no more late or unfulfilled orders!).
- You don’t know how much material or product you need — and your time to market is lagging
Traditional material requirements planning (MRP) process is evolving— and accounting software solutions lack the capability to evolve with it. Accounting software is not meant to replace an ERP solution and has very strict limitations. (Read more about MRP here.)
With a manufacturing ERP solution, you can improve your production timeframe while streamlining costs. This allows you to know what material or product you need, how much you need, and when you need it, even across different locations and channels.
Improving time to market can give you a competitive edge. But if you’ve hit a wall and can’t improve your time any more with your current system — you’ve likely outgrown it.
- You’re being outpaced by the competition
There are many operational processes that can increase your competitiveness, but several key ones lie directly in the manufacturing realm — and ERP can help you stand out from the pack.
Streamlining operational and inventory costs indicates that you can either drop prices or bring in more revenue. This can improve your time-to-market and make you more competitive.
Whether your competitors are outpacing you, or you’re neck-and-neck and want to move ahead of the crowd, your current accounting system is likely holding you back.
The decision to adopt a manufacturing ERP solution is a critical one if you want to continue growing your business.
Once you’ve determined it is time to adopt a manufacturing ERP solution, the next step is choosing the right solution for your business. That’s where SHEA Global comes in. We’ll evaluate your business and help you choose the best solution for your needs.
Get started today. Contact us to discover the ERP possibilities for your business.