Mar 21 2017

How one company streamlined business and blew away the overseas competition

Automating Processes, streamlining business with Synergy

Quest Industries, a Midwest company that provides precision tooling, machining, prototyping and pre-production services, prides themselves on their quality assurance and guaranteed satisfaction. With overseas competition increasing, Denny Hoover, President of Quest Industries realized the importance of standardizing processes to continue to keep the high quality that his customers had come to expect over the 30 plus years his company has been in business.

The problem with standardizing processes is that they don’t get followed! After laying out a plan for sales, customer service and inventory, he found that his team was adjusting the processes to their liking. Orders were entered differently depending on who entered them, employees continually forgot to clock their hours on jobs, and the scheduler didn’t know what jobs to prioritize based on materials on hand and order status! In fact, as you’ll hear Denny say himself on his walk-through video, it got so bad that he wasn’t sure if he needed to start telling customers “no” because he could not see if they were at capacity.  And, how could Denny get his team to follow steps exactly as laid out, each and every time?

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Mar 13 2017

Understanding Macola Manufacturing - Make to Stock, Make to Order and Configure to Order

The Macola ERP system is considered a “mixed mode” manufacturing system as it relates to how you plan replenishment for items. Many items are managed to anticipate customer demand, and are classified as make to stock, so that inventory is available on the shelf when a customer order is placed. For certain items, you may only produce them when you receive a customer order for them, in other words, you treat it as make to order.

 

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Mar 06 2017

Forecasting US Manufacturing in 2017 Part 2: Strategies for Success

Today we continue to look at the 2017 manufacturing outlook for the United States. In the first part of this series we looked at the forecast of where manufacturers expect the industry to go this year, as well as some of the challenges they will face in getting there. Today, in part 2 of this series, we will look at specific strategies that top manufacturers are implementing in order to become more profitable.

As we highlighted in the last blog, 44% of small to mid-sized manufacturers were projected growth of at least 10% this year. In order to uncover the strategies these companies plan to employ in order to achieve that growth, Leading Edge Alliance (LEA) segmented out this group from their survey and compiled their answers. Below are those answers.

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Mar 03 2017

Forecasting US Manufacturing in 2017 Part 1: Outlook and Challenges

In this, the first blog of a two-part series, we want to take a look at the 2017 manufacturing forecast. As many of you know, manufacturing has been a hot-button political issue the last year, so taking a look at where the industry is headed over the next 12 months seems appropriate.

In order to best report on industry projections we will be referencing a recent survey conducted by Leading Edge Alliance. The survey is an accurate cross section of US manufacturers, focusing primarily on small and medium sized manufacturers, with a smattering of large manufacturers included. This cross section is based on the fact that 94% of US manufacturers have fewer than 100 employees.

Having explained the source of the information to be presented, let’s take a look at the data.

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