In this article, we are going to review some of the reasons why many manufacturing businesses love Sage X3 for automating scheduling and production tasks.

Sage X3 is a powerful Cloud ERP software solution capable of automating your manufacturing and production scheduling to help you deliver on time, every time.

Manufacturing businesses have to juggle a number of priorities to remain competitive.

Fluctuating foreign exchange rates, raw material price changes, long lead times, short delivery timeframes and competition from overseas and high labour costs, to name a few.

Just as important – on-time, in-full delivery of products to your customers is key.

But perhaps one of the most important aspects of successful manufacturing companies is inventory management. Managing inventory, including raw materials and finished goods to an optimum level whilst maintaining customer satisfaction can be extremely complex!

We all know the outcomes of poor inventory management. If you hold too much stock, you are tying up valuable cash flow in inventory. On the other hand, if you hold too little stock (and keep the accountants happy), your ability to deliver on time and in full to your customers begins to suffer.

Is it possible to juggle manufacturing and purchase planning to optimise inventory levels without using an ERP?

Most manufacturing companies that we talk to have a very similar view of the challenges that surround an optimal production.

• “Sales tells manufacturing that if manufacturing made more products on time then sales would find it easier to sell those available quantities.”
• Manufacturing counters this with “If the sales team could accurately forecast sales then the manufacturing team would be able to plan more accurately and would be delivering ahead of schedule”.

These debates have been around forever!

The truth is, there are a lot of moving parts when trying to juggle manufacturing and purchase planning. For those of you who don’t use an ERP software or are still managing the whole process on spreadsheets, you know the complexities:

• Customer orders;
• Supplier delivery schedules;
• Lead times;
• Manufacturing delays;
• Alternative shifts;
• Outsource work;
• Shipping times for raw materials;
• Forecast sales.

Trying to work through thousands or even tens of thousands of transactions to detect trends and to plan the schedule accordingly takes computing power and robust systems designed specifically for manufacturing companies.

Enter the age of Cloud-Based ERP Solutions and automated planning and purchasing software such as Sage X3, your business gets access to:

• Forecast planning
• Purchase planning
• Material Requirements Planning
• Graphic scheduling
• Advance planning and scheduling
• Many other integrated functionalities that are part of the platform

Manufacturing and scheduling on autopilot with Sage X3

Sage X3 offers the complete suite of advanced manufacturing and inventory control tools to help businesses balance the demands of operating and scheduling a manufacturing plant.

• Visibility across the organisation – Using Sage X3 you get a view of the entire organisation. No more “islands of information”. Finance, inventory, purchasing, manufacturing, CRM and reporting are all integrated. A single view of customers, suppliers, inventory and manufacturing – from anywhere, anytime.
• Data that makes sense – Sage X3 allows you to sort through thousands and thousands of transactions to make sense of the real data and the real picture. If an order is delayed, Sage X3 will give you an immediate picture of the delay and the new delivery dates so that you can immediately update your sales team and customer – in fact, even this part of the process can be automated.
• Drive efficiency at every level – Due to the tightly integrated nature of Sage X3 you will be able to drive efficiency at every level – sales, cash flow, purchasing, manufacturing and management. Ultimately leading to quicker quote to cash timeframes, better cash flow and improved customer service. Driving efficiency comes from multiple technological improvements in ERP solutions – think about AP automation (scanning AP invoices and automatically producing approval workflow), expense management automation, automated forecast planning, purchase order recommendations from MRP (Material Requirements Planning) and mobility (access to relevant information where and when you want it).
•  Balance limited resources – All manufacturing companies struggle with balancing limited resources to make the best decisions. In the new age of technology, data is being received from thousands of different platforms – social media, e-commerce, EDI, ERP, planning systems, customer portals, news feeds and more. A modern ERP solution like Sage X3 captures this data, make sense of the data and presents the data in a format that allows you, the user, to use that data to make informed decisions about resource allocation – labour, machinery and raw materials. This might include Business Intelligence (BI) reporting from Sage X3 (for example SDMA) to help you understand your business data which in turn will help you make the correct decisions in balancing these limited resources.

Conclusion

Most companies considering an ERP solution like Sage X3 because they have outgrown their current software.

Most often the pain that is being felt with the existing systems is associated with operational struggles:

• Islands of information are preventing the business from getting a single, consolidated view of operations;
• Inability to correctly forecast, plan and schedule manufacturing;
• Hard to access meaningful data, when and where we need it.

Sage X3 brings operational efficiencies to businesses looking to progress from a basic system to a sophisticated manufacturing software.

This is because Sage X3’s capabilities associated with planning, scheduling and operational control give you the ability to manage your entire manufacturing progress, from quote to cash, from a single system and in real-time.

Want to learn more about Sage X3? Call us on 1300 045 046 or email [email protected].