Why the High Demand for Manufacturing Software?
Software Advice, a business partner that I regularly work with, conducted a survey of more than 2,000 manufacturing software buyers. Being in the industry for the last 15 years, the results are quite interesting, though not surprising.
Manufacturing Software – Buyer Trends Report
The survey addressed key questions, including:
What method do you currently use to track manufacturing processes?
What are the top reasons for a manufacturing software purchase?
What are your top application requirements?
An area I found encouraging is the reason for replacing manual or industry-specific software. Wanting to improve efficiency indicates companies are talking with their customers and partners.
Reasons for Replacing Manual Methods
Regular discussions with your supply chain partners and customers provides you with information you might not otherwise receive. This allows you to continuously improve your processes – giving you better lead times, turns and cost inefficiencies, and giving your customers better service, and response time.
As you look for a solution, make sure the solution will fit your specific business needs. A simple wish-list for any software should be to:
Meet business goals
Pay for itself
Be reliable
Be user-friendly
Require little maintenance
Easily adapt to business change
Be well-supported by the seller
Offered with a free trial period
Beware of price tags that do not include costly components required to make the product functional such as additional database platforms, application server software, hardware costs, integration costs, consulting costs, etc. Good software should compliment existing legacy systems and utilize current data warehouses, not create new ones.
History shows that spending hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars, on the latest technology does not guarantee success. More importantly, after all is said and done, some companies will never see a return on expensive software investments.
Reduce the risk of investing a substantial amount of funds and resources into a large project where success cannot possibly be determined until months after completion. Consider a smaller, limited-budget solution if it is available. Some of these smaller products will implement in a matter of days and accomplish everything you need them to do. In addition, business needs are bound to change over time. Smaller solutions can be adapted to meet those changes quickly and at a much lower cost.
