The next industrial revolution is upon us, and if you haven’t connected your factory’s software, hardware, and equipment, you’re already behind. Companies can lose up to $260,000 for every hour machines are down, and slow communication to frontline workers creates costly bottlenecks in production. Rain Engineering will help you select, deploy and support the systems you use to transform your company, enabling you to:
Speeding up communication between front-line workers and the work they do increases their opportunity to make the right decisions as things change throughout the day. Getting people and equipment connected is the first step. Rain Engineering has helped manufacturers connect more than 10,000 assets and has streamlined this process to make it happen fast. Then, selecting the right technology and software and getting it in the hands of front-line workers.
Connecting your people to your equipment and your shop floor’s connectivity does a lot more than just schedule, plan, and execute the production of new orders. It plays a pivotal role in creating transparency across your entire supply chain. Failing to connect it properly could cast a large shadow across the experience you’re providing to your customers, and that could mean losing their repeat business. Today’s customer expects you to keep the promises you make them. Fail to do that, and they’ll go somewhere else. Thankfully, system and machine connectivity is becoming common practice.
Gone are the days of customers having to call your nine-to-five sales team to place an order. Thanks to order channels like e-commerce integrated with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tools, your customers can place orders whenever and however they want. Offering your clients this level of customer experience is very appealing.
The transparency into the order process provided by connecting your shop floor is also a major allure for customers. Whether it’s an everyday retail transaction or a wholesale order, today’s customers have come to expect a fully transparent transaction. Following their order’s journey from work-in-process to shipped gives them greater visibility into their supply chain, thus making you a valuable asset in their organization’s success.
Today’s Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) Systems often feature demand forecasting functionality. These tools mean you know the approximate demand of a product at any given time, thus reducing waste, shortages, and overstocks. Furthermore, this functionality can even be built out to forecast not only when products will be needed but where they can best be manufactured as well. Reliable stock levels and reduction in shipping times mean greater success for your customers and repeat business for you.
Nothing is worse than having your perfectly planned production schedule suddenly being overturned in an instant by a change order or large rush for an important client. Modern APS and Manufacturing Execution System (MES) tools can create optimized what-if schedules almost instantly, giving you options as to the best ways to complete the change order or new job with the least impact possible.
Modern MES solutions provide tools to track and record operator training and certifications to meet compliance standards. These tools can tell you not only where and when a batch of product was made, but also the specific operators that were involved in its creation as well. Audits will no longer sap your operation team’s productivity.
Especially appealing for dropshippers, modern MES systems can determine the most optimal plant to produce a good. During implementation, you establish rules and logic that will determine which plant a new order is routed and scheduled. These rules can include the distance from the final destination, state regulations, shipping costs, or other types of logic.
It goes without saying, but inventory visibility across your entire supply chain has become a necessity to compete in today’s market. Whether it’s in a retail location, warehouse, dropshipping location, or plant, having real-time inventory levels is pivotal for achieving the all-mighty omnichannel. Integration between Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) and MES systems not only updates completed and work-in-progress inventory levels, but raw material levels as well.