Expert Insight: Guest Contribution
     
  By Rod Winger, Senior Director, Product Marketing, Manufacturing and Supply Chain Solutions, Epicor Software Corporation  
     
  Jan. 30, 2009  
     
 

Supply Chain News: Next Generation Enterprise Resource Planning Leads Truly Lean Organizations

 
     
 

Connectivity Across the Enterprise and Extended Value Chain is Critical Foundation for Lean

 
 

 

Winger Says:
The challenges of a global economy and expanding markets in an increasingly customer-centric world create the need for truly Lean manufacturing organizations.

What do you say? Send us your comments here

Today’s market demands Lean principles. The challenges of a global economy and expanding markets in an increasingly customer-centric world create the need for truly Lean manufacturing organizations.

Shorter lead times, improved quality, reduced cost and increased profits have become a vital industry focus in recent years. In the past, enterprise resource planning software presented challenges in going Lean. Technology was too inflexible.

Effective ERP Software with Lean In Mind

Now, as technology advances, ERP software is designed with Lean in mind – combining the latest in 100% service-oriented architecture, Enterprise 2.0 concepts, extensible markup language (xml) programming, EDI, as well as mobile and network technologies. The result is true, end-to-end solutions, providing insight into all aspects of a user’s business.

The question of how to implement Lean presents a unique set of challenges to the global midmarket – continuous process improvement and waste elimination requires true, real-time insight into traditionally separate business functions.

From product lifecycle management, planning, production and supply chain, to financials, sales, customer service and relationship management, connectivity is essential. Despite the demand, a recent AMR Research report states: “While our recent IT spending survey shows 15% of companies said the application of Lean practices across the organization was the single most important business initiative affecting IT investment decisions, our interviews indicate companies have been slow to adopt the broad range of functionality offered by Lean software providers.”

Effective ERP software aids in the implementation of Lean. AMR Research explains “A modern, integrated ERP suite that supports not only manufacturing, but also financials, supply chain and customer management – and is supported by functionality for tracking a company’s performance – can help support the proliferation of Lean throughout the enterprise.”

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