Manufacturing Automation: Save Time and Money

Lockdowns and massive shifts in consumer demand have forced many manufacturers to shift their approach to stay afloat. Throughout the industry, you’ll see organizations looking for creative solutions to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and use technology to make better decisions faster. 

Challenges around data management, inefficient workflows, and lack of end-to-end transparency create barriers to efficiency and productivity. And even as the end appears to be in sight, manufacturers are still faced with a changed post-pandemic world where they must master how to maximize output while minimizing overhead. 

When challenged with dire options, those that rise to the top are able to quickly adapt and pivot. The leanest and most efficient organizations are the ones that not only weather the storm, but thrive. 

Drivers and Impacts of Inefficiency

A primary driver of inefficiency in many manufacturing organizations are error-prone manual workflows from back office to production floor to shipping. Poor data management and endless manual paperwork mean that at every step where data has to be communicated or translated, there is another entry point for human error. 

These manual workflows are not only error-prone, they are often slow and create accountability challenges. Without comprehensive in-house inventory or supply data, production can find itself halted due to lack of materials and delays in sourcing. When the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, there is no transparency internally (to the team) or externally (to the customer) where in production an order is, efforts are duplicated, while other tasks slip through the cracks. 

Manufacturing automations are necessary to create an efficient production pipeline, reduce errors, and increase transparency and accountability.

Automation Drives Efficiency in Manufacturing

So how do you go from manual or inefficient processes to using technology to transform your organization? Implement tools that can unite the back office, production floor, and shipping departments to give your business the single pane of glass needed to fully track supply, order, and production data. Using a platform like Claris, organizations can craft solutions as unique as their business, that support seamless movement through every step in the workflow, all while gathering and reporting on key business metrics. By creating a custom Claris FileMaker solution, you never pay for out-of-box features that don’t fit your business, while maximizing visibility and efficiency at every level. A customized fit also means easier pivots and entries into new lines of business for unprecedented scalability.

Unification of tools across the organization means that the left and right hands will always know what the other is doing, reducing/eliminating errors and drastically increasing customer satisfaction through increased speed to fulfilment and order status transparency. When a data change is made anywhere in the pipeline that can immediately be seen by every department, your business can seamlessly react and adapt. Real-time information reflected in mobile-friendly apps allow organizations to accomplish work faster, more efficiently, and innovate in fresh new ways.

Productivity Drives the Customer Experience

Automation also helps manufacturers do more than survive the boom and bust economic cycles and smooth out internal production challenges, it also helps achieve one of the most imperative initiatives – customer satisfaction. Amazon has set a high bar that customers have come to expect in regards to speed and transparency when they order products. From order placement all the way to the doorstep, customers want to be able to see what’s happening. When organizations rely on outdated workflows heavy on paperwork and light on transparency, they risk alienating customers and failing to foster those strong relationships. Claris FileMaker-driven solutions allow you to build customer experiences that meet and achieve this higher bar of transparency and speed.

Codence Can Help

Here at Codence, we are a team of Claris specialists, Interface designers, analytics experts, and finance gurus dedicated to creating custom-crafted solutions for your business. With a Codence-built FileMaker solution, you will finally be able to see all your data, workflows, and accounting in one place, and reach manufacturing efficiency levels like never before. Automate and activate your manufacturing business, achieve new levels of productivity, and discover what new heights you can soar to!

More about Streamlining

See how Codence has helped improve our manufacturing client’s teams, workflows, and bottom line.