Enterprise resource planning or ERP selection of software is no easy task. At the same time, it is essential to find, implement, and use ERP software in order improve automation (including distribution automation and manufacturing automation) and integration. To learn more about the benefits of manufacturing automation, visit here.

ERP selection success and ongoing use of ERP help to combat the potential difficulties faced by modern-day manufacturers that result from limited budgets, outdated or insufficient technology, increasing globalization, and general manufacturing challenges. In order to evaluate where you lie on the spectrum of insurmountable difficulties all the way to overwhelming success, you need to reflect on your current reality.

If you can answer “yes” to any of the many questions below, you likely face at least some difficulties in the world of manufacturing and distribution. The more you answer affirmatively, the more difficulties you are probably facing. Answer each one of the following questions honestly, and use this insight to reflect on what you can do to change the answers to “no” in order to move away from difficulties and towards success.

• Do you struggle to automate the production, picking, planning, and analysis stages of manufacturing processes to safeguard profitability?
• Do you suffer from a lack of manufacturing automation overall?
• Have you neglected to give staff the needed resources and flexible skills to respond to situations as they arise?
• Are you only looking for ways to trade, produce, and supply products nearby but not to a global market?
• Are you insensitive and unresponsive to client needs with value-added services and innovative practices?
• Do you suffer from ineffective distribution automation processes?
• Are you needing to raise the bar on operational efficiency and productivity?
• Have you forgotten to respond to demand with streamlined scheduling and manufacturing?
• Do you lack true insight into profitability and business performance?
• Do you have trouble minimizing inventory and monitoring margins?
• Are you unable to guarantee the quality needed to satisfy customers in terms of both products and services provided?
• Do you lack a competitive advantage as a manufacturing firm with low-quality products and services?
• Is the range of product offering limited?
• Are products offered that can only be offered to a certain niche or narrow market because of costs?
• Do you struggle to maintain a solid bottom line that can handle rising costs and an ever-increasing number of lower-cost manufacturers that are competitors?
• Are you slow in your speed of response to customer needs?
• Are you inflexible and inefficient in meeting expectations brought on by customers with regards to lead-times, service quality, and commitments?
• Are you clueless as to the rules and tools you need in order to grow and globalize trade?
• Are you resistant to international development?
• Do you lack global production processes that mean you are not keeping up with distribution and extended production chains?
• Are you falling behind in responding to shifting consumer behaviors by limiting customer access to goods or only making them available locally?
• Are your technological processes lagging behind?
• Are your processes causing shrinking product lifecycles that are unresponsive to new technologies?
• Do you resist environmental compliance standards that need to be met but require extra checks and controls throughout the production and shipping process?
• Do you shy away from outsourcing production while diversifying products?
• Do you neglect extending sales channels that could further expand options for customers?
• Are your marketing and customer relation efforts declining?
• Do you resist using multi-channel distribution systems to reach customers worldwide?

Please contact us for further assistance in ERP selection meant to put you on the path to success. To learn more about ERP software that is built to assist in your success and overcome difficulties, visit here.

For further details on using ERP to eliminate difficulties and enhance success, download our whitepaper “ERP – A Strategic Growth Driver for Manufacturing Firms.”