Why Data-Driven Manufacturing is Not Enough

Occasionally, someone will mix up DDM (Demand-Driven Manufacturing) with another DDM acronym in our industry: Data-Driven Manufacturing. There are similarities. For example, executing demand-driven principles relies heavily on data and shop floor visibility. However, it doesn’t stop there. In this post, we’ll take a look at Data-Driven Manufacturing and why it’s useful but not enough to help you reach your goals. Data: It Is What It Is One of

ERP is an Oxymoron

Have you ever had one of those moments when a thought hits you that is so obvious that you wonder why it never occurred to you before? I just decided that there couldn’t be a technology less aptly named than Enterprise Resource Planning, more commonly known as ERP. Before I go into why, let me lay the groundwork so we’re all using the same terminology. What is ERP? From

Going Lean: Should You Replace Your ERP System?

By Trey Jordan, Senior Software Consultant Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) has been around for decades. You’d think, by now, the industry would have it figured out. Yet, every year, we hear news about ERP implementations that fail. For every one of these high-profile flops, there are many, many more implementations that simply fail to live up to expectations. At some point in their Lean journey, nearly every manufacturer faces the

The Pros and Cons of Consolidating Manufacturing ERP Systems

Managing operations through multiple manufacturing systems can be challenging, but it’s a daily reality for many manufacturers. In this post, we’ll look at the pros and cons of consolidating ERP systems – and propose an alternative. When Two Worlds Collide Whenever two or more organizations merge, they are almost always using different ERP systems. As anyone who’s ever tried to consolidate an ERP systems knows, it’s not easy. Each

John Maher, Synchrono Manufacturing Software

Three Ways Leaders Create Lean

Three Ways Leaders Create Lean “Relentless” leadership and team empowerment drive lean change For those of you who have heard this before, it bears repeating. For those of you who have not, this is important – leadership is the single most important component to lean success. It is exciting to talk about bottom-up change and expect that a ground swell of individuals in virtually every level of the organizational chart

Are Your Manufacturing Metrics Meaningless?

It seems not a week goes by when I don’t hear from someone in manufacturing: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”. Of course, there is a lot of truth to that statement, but as someone who spends all day, every day, helping manufacturers gather real-time data for better operational performance, I believe the statement is incomplete. The axiom should be: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure consistently and