For many progressive manufacturing companies, the concept of "Lean" has evolved from its original definition as a strategy for efficient manufacturing and has now become an objective worth pursuing across every aspect of the business. Why? Because the goals of Lean are not limited solely to production. Eliminating waste, increasing efficiency and productivity, and striving for continuous improvement are now acknowledged as proven tactics in the competitive battle to improve operational performance, product quality, customer relationships and the financial bottom line.

The fact is that manufacturers can begin to adopt a Lean philosophy and expand the beneficial effects of Lean across virtually every business process in the enterprise. In doing so, over time, a company can shift its focus to become more customer-centric, optimize its supply chain management, and successfully align all of its business processes to advance corporate goals.

From a "big picture" point of view, here are five key steps an organization needs to take to begin implement Lean thinking, principles and practices. These include:

• Specify – Since the most dominant underlying principle of Lean is the creation of value for the customer, the first step calls for breaking down and analyzing the entire value chain to calculate the perceived customer value delivered by each process area.
• Map – Once the value chain is broken down, the various steps are valued and mapped in their respective places according to value delivered. Those areas that do not contribute to customer value are considered as wasteful and either minimized or eliminated. The remaining elements form the foundation for developing a true customer-focused value chain.
• Flow – The purpose of this step is to create a smooth and efficient process flow between the value-added steps identified in order to transform the chain into a value stream for the company. The increase in flow will ultimately improve lead times and eliminate "bull whip" effects, creating maximum efficiency and productivity.
• Pull – Pull and flow are two of the most important elements of Lean Manufacturing and its implementation. Once the true value stream is established, products can be manufactured in alignment with actual customer demand and not by assumptions or arbitrary forecasts.
• Perfect – The final and very important step is bringing the principle of continuous improvement to the Lean Manufacturing initiative. We have all seen how complacency and stagnation can plague an organization - whether it is a championship sports team, a small to midsize business, or a Fortune 500 company. It is essential that an organization not allow the initial taste of Lean success to get in the way of their continual pursuit of perfection. Ongoing process improvement is absolutely key to sustaining a competitive edge.

 

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About Glovia Services, Inc.

Glovia Services, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Glovia International, Inc., a subsidiary of Fujitsu Limited (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 6702), one of the world's most experienced and solidly backed providers of extended ERP solutions for businesses of any size-from small and midsized companies to global enterprises. Glovia Services offers GSInnovate web-based manufacturing software from pluggable point solutions to a comprehensive on-demand ERP suite that provides for the unique needs of engineer-to-order, make-to-order, high volume and mixed-mode manufacturing environments through comprehensive, end-to-end functionality for the entire product life-cycle. Headquartered in El Segundo, California, Glovia Services has helped manufacturers to cut costs, improve productivity, and meet customer demands for over 30 years. For more information please visit www.gsinnovate.com, or call 310-563-8700 or 877-474-8896 (toll free).

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu is a leading provider of IT-based business solutions for the global marketplace. With approximately 160,000 employees supporting customers in 70 countries, Fujitsu combines a worldwide corps of systems and services experts with highly reliable computing and communications products and advanced microelectronics to deliver added value to customers. Headquartered in Tokyo, Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 5.3 trillion yen (US$53 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2008. For more information, please see: www.fujitsu.com.

About the GSInnovate Industry Insight Series

Glovia Services strives to equip manufacturers with the expert knowledge and best practices gained from our own manufacturing and technology experience. The GSInnovate Industry Insight Series provides manufacturers with the latest resources to effectively manage their business on demand.

Eliminate waste. Increase workflow efficiency. Strive for continuous improvement. These are just a few of the phrases manufacturers have come across regarding Lean Manufacturing and its benefits. Lean has become a proven method for improving operational performance, product quality, customer relationships and the financial bottom line.

In this paper, we will take a closer look at Lean Manufacturing — how it began and why, its underlying principles and practices, where it has been and, most importantly, how today's manufacturers can undertake lean initiatives to drive significant improvements in virtually every aspect of their operational and business performance.

A Brief History of Lean

The basic principles of Lean Manufacturing dates back 50 years to a complete re-thinking of processes at Toyota. This led to that company's development of the Just-In-Time (JIT) philosophy and the Toyota Production Systems (TPS) — all steps taken to enable Toyota to compete in both domestic and foreign markets with limited resources and capacity. The company's overwhelming success in the ensuing decades became a case study and model for manufacturers all over the world, and still sets the standard today.

In past years, repetitive manufacturers have experienced the most success with Lean practices because remapping the value stream was straightforward, the implementation process was often limited to the factory and customer demand was somewhat more predictable. As time went on, however, competitive pressures on all manufacturers continued to grow and magnify weaknesses in the organization. Today, shorter product life cycles, increases in customer expectations and foreign competition are forcing companies to further reduce costs and improve supply chain flexibility and agility.

Since the introduction of Lean Manufacturing half a century ago, numerous companies have been exposed to the Lean philosophy and impressed by its success stories. Unfortunately, many businesses sought quick answers by implementing piecemeal approaches, not fully realizing or understanding the methodology and commitment of resources required for success.

Other companies have been able to leverage Lean principles to realize substantial positive results. As a result, the concept of Lean has enjoyed steady growth and is again being discussed in executive meetings and IT departments. Much of this renewed interest is due to the changes that have occurred in both the application of Lean and competition in the marketplace.

Defining Lean Principles

To better understand the changes in the application of Lean and competition in the marketplace, we need to revisit the basic fundamentals of Lean and its critical success factors.

For a business to be called "Lean," management needs to adopt a philosophical strategy that is relentless in its efforts to create value for the customer through the elimination and prevention of waste, such as excess inventory, needless motion and other time and resource-consuming activities. Essentially, Lean aims to create a value stream comprised only of processes that add perceived customer value.

As more value is created with fewer resources, lean operations can increasingly focus on allowing customer demand to "pull" products and services through production and the supply chain, rather than "push" products out to customers based on plant capacity, forecast assumptions or other factors. However, unless there is stability and optimal flow, the Lean value stream cannot meet the demand that is pulled through the system without using a considerable buffer inventory.

Flow, which is created through communication and synchronization, will minimize delays within the system and allow for collaboration. This customer-focused value stream ultimately improves productivity, decreases waste, creates flexibility and responsiveness and increases customer satisfaction, while reducing inventory and adding to the bottom line.

5 Steps Toward Implementing Lean

From a 'big picture' point of view, there are five key steps an organization needs to take to begin implement Lean thinking, principles and practices. These include:

• Specify – Since the most dominant underlying principle of Lean is the creation of value for the customer, the first step calls for breaking down and analyzing the entire value chain to calculate the perceived customer value delivered by each process area.
• Map – Once the value chain is broken down, the various steps are valued and mapped in their respective places according to value delivered. Those areas that do not contribute to customer value are considered as wasteful and either minimized or eliminated. The remaining elements form the foundation for developing a true customer-focused value chain.
• Flow – The purpose of this step is to create a smooth and efficient process flow between the value-added steps identified in order to transform the chain into a value stream for the company. The increase in flow will ultimately improve lead times and eliminate "bull whip" effects, creating maximum efficiency and productivity.
• Pull – Pull and flow are two of the most important elements of Lean Manufacturing and its implementation. Once the true value stream is established, products can be manufactured in alignment with actual customer demand and not by assumptions or arbitrary forecasts.
• Perfect – The final and very important step is bringing the principle of continuous improvement to the Lean Manufacturing initiative. We have all seen how complacency and stagnation can plague an organization – whether it is a championship sports team, a small to midsize business, or a Fortune 500 company. It is essential that an organization not allow the initial taste of Lean success to get in the way of their continual pursuit of perfection. Ongoing process improvement is absolutely key to sustaining a competitive edge.

Eliminating the 7 Areas of Waste

Preventing or at least minimizing waste is another key principle of Lean Manufacturing. Seven areas of waste that can plague a manufacturing enterprise include:

• Overproduction – Inaccurate demand forecasting and faulty communication are a few reasons why manufacturers tend to produce more than their customers need or want. Simply put, a business that persists in producing more products than the market demands is simply wasting time, money, energy and labor resources.
• Excess Inventory – A direct result of overproduction and long cycle times is excess inventory, whether in raw materials, work-in-process or finished goods. This type of waste can be especially burdensome when it begins to take up space, requires maintenance/ record keeping, and freezes up a good portion of liquid assets.
• Transportation and Logistics – When creating shorter cycle times, a good place to start is the transportation segments of the value stream. Any time you have materials, parts or finished goods in transit, there is potential for enormous waste because the parts and goods are sitting in a container creating no value.
• Excess Motion – Similar to transportation, motion creates waste when materials, products, equipment and people are used inefficiently. Excessive movement should be automated where applicable or eliminated altogether so that product cycle times may be reduced.
• Design/Engineering – Products should only carry the value that is perceived, needed or appreciated by the customer. If customers cannot see the value in a particular product feature or understand its purpose, then there is no reason to include it in the first place. This kind of waste is often present in product development areas, such as design and engineering.
• Excessive Waiting – A byproduct of poor process design, waiting time creates lags in the system and interrupts efficient flow, which not only affects that particular phase of the operation, but also the ones that come before and after as well. This "bullwhip" effect is a common occurrence that creates many capital and risk issues.
• Errors – As is commonly known, the expense and effort involved in repairing damage or defects, and handling scrap, is typically more than the cost and labor required to prevent them. Taking preventive measures and focusing on creating an error-free production process will lead to higher productivity and a smoother experience for everyone involved, including the customer.

10 Technical Elements of Lean Manufacturing

In its Lean initiative, Toyota instituted five s-words — Seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu and shisuke — which can be roughly translated as: Sort, Simplify, Shine, Standardize and Sustain. The purpose of these directives is to create a clean and organized work environment that is consistently productive. Here are nine additional ways in which Lean principles are put into action:

• Visual Control – An important aspect of Lean, visual controls promote the importance of communication and visibility. This is a key element in any process because the signals invoke almost immediate responses from the target.
• Standardized Work – It was only a matter of time before factory automation and the Industrial Revolution decimated the cottage industry. Standardization is the clear path to efficiency when producing quality products on a consistent basis.
• Total Predictive Maintenance (TPM) – An adaptation of Toyota's maintenance philosophy, TPM stresses the importance of utilizing, updating and maintaining equipment to create a production line that is flexible and flows at an optimal level.
• Cellular Production – A type of "division of labor," cellular production organizes the manufacturing process into sub-processes and enables the company to produce smaller lot sizes, increase flow and improve product quality.
• Error Proofing – Referred to as "poka-yoka" in Japanese, the idea is to identify the sources of mistakes and create measures that will cause them to either be eliminated or spotted easily for correction.
• Takt Time – The basic rate of production, Takt time uses customer demand and production time to create a steady flow in operations, eliminating many areas of waste such as inventory, overproduction and waiting.
• Continuous Flow – Using a timed execution schedule and some of the aforementioned techniques, optimal flow is created and maintained to allow operations to keep inventories to a minimum and shortened cycle times.
• Leveled Production – Utilizing tools such as Takt time, leveled production aims to remove bottlenecks and allows work to flow through the production process by coordinating with customer demand.
• Pull System – In order to decrease cycle times and keep inventories low, pull systems will only consume materials required because they are based on demand, instead of forecasting tools. This principle led to the practice of Just-in-Time delivery in which materials and supplies needed for production are scheduled for delivery on a just-in-time basis, eliminating the need for additional labor expense and storage.

Critical Factors to Lean Success

Today, tremendous opportunity exists not only for companies that have had initial success with Lean, but also for those who are starting or have not yet begun the journey. Despite some initial misconceptions, Lean can support a wide range of manufacturing styles from Repetitive and Make-to-Stock to Build-to-Order and Engineer-to-Order – in addition to entire enterprises and supply chains. Success in these environments is highly contingent on the design and application of the appropriate Lean solution. When it comes to Lean, one size does not fit all.

Critical success factors for any Lean Manufacturing initiative include:

• Top management desire, commitment and leadership, and active daily support from all levels of management
• Consistent goals, objectives and performance measures throughout the company
• A thorough understanding of "as-is" customer needs, business requirements and processes
• A clear and consolidated company purpose, lean vision and strategy
• Formulation of new operating philosophies, "to-be" methods and processes
• Fully engaged and knowledgeable people at all levels of the business
• Ownership by team members directly involved in the value stream
• A company-wide focus on daily problem solving for continuous improvement
• The intelligent application of proven technologies to enable the transformation by supporting people and processes, accompanied by experienced Lean consultation to help ensure success

Commonly Held Misconceptions About Lean

Clearly, Lean Manufacturing provides real opportunities to leapfrog the competition and drive significant performance improvements by incorporating the benefits and implications of demand-driven supply networks and build-to-order supply chains. However, prior to creating a Lean strategy, vision and "to-be" value stream process models, it is important to clear up some misconceptions about MRP, ERP, appropriate Lean applications and the Internet.

1. Lean Cannot Coexist with MRP and MPS

   One of the dominant principles of Lean is that production should be based on demand pulled through the system, and that anything in excess of that demand is considered waste and hence should be avoided. In the past, however, manufacturers used material requirements planning (MRP) and master production scheduling (MPS) to help them push their work through production. At first glance, it would seem that Lean's "pull" and MPS's "push" could never coexist because the purpose for one is a polar opposite of the other.

   Despite the perceived line between the two, a company that adopts lean practices does not have to part with the components of their "push" system. In fact, MRP and MPS can be used with Lean to create a balanced attack towards keeping inventories low and cycle times short. MRP and MPS can actually help automate wasted areas of motion, increase visibility and create avenues of heightened communication. If forecasts can be frequently updated and demand history is broken down into small homogeneous streams, MRP and MPS will be able to assist in the receiving and relaying of signals for procurement and production.

2. Lean Cannot Coexist with ERP

   As a product of MRP and MPS, enterprise resource planning (ERP) is also a target of many lean enthusiasts because of the centralized techno-bureaucracy that exists. They feel the concept of sending information back and forth, as well as the mass amount of reporting, would end up clogging a system that is intended to eliminate waste.

   In the end, as technology becomes better and faster with each passing day, the reasoning behind their logic becomes poorly grounded. Accurate data can be transferred in real time, giving everyone in the organization an up-to-date status report, regardless of time or place. Despite the fact that ERP, in its relation to Lean, was met with great skepticism ten years ago, advances in technology have now made it an essential tool for successful implementation.

3. Lean is Only for Large Corporations

   Smaller and midsized businesses (SMBs) feel pressure to implement cost cutting strategies as well, but think the strategies applied by large corporations are inapplicable to them. They believe the price tag for implementing Lean and the accompanying technology would be far too much for an organization that is more reactive and concerned with the total cost of ownership. This expectation and their need for short-term results often keeps them from evaluating the ROI or long-term benefits of Lean.

   As long as a company focuses on mission-critical areas and improves its core competencies, there should be no reason why Lean Manufacturing and technology cannot benefit SMBs. Lean is a scalable solution that requires a great deal of personnel commitment; however, the technology can be worked in so it is cost effective and manageable.

4. Lean and the Internet Do Not Mix

   Another dichotomy that exists within common understanding of Lean is its apparent conflict with the natural capabilities of the Internet. While Lean tries to create efficient manufacturing by keeping the variety and flexibility of a product limited, the Internet and technology enable companies to provide the variety and flexibility customers desire.

   Because of this, the Internet and IT are sometimes labeled as inhibitors of Lean – but nothing could be farther from the truth. The two are actually great facilitators in helping to reduce and eliminate a large amount of waste, whether on the shop floor or in customer/supplier management processes. The Internet and IT allow Lean principles to be implemented, both directly and indirectly, throughout the supply chain, as communication and visibility are created on a real-time basis. With suppliers on board, the role that the Internet plays for Lean and its "pull" principle is clear. Demand driven manufacturing is triggered through customers on the Internet on a real-time basis, allowing everyone one involved in the supply chain, even the outsourced suppliers, to receive updated information on the materials and parts required.

Lean Manufacturing Today

Many of the misconceptions around Lean Manufacturing were formed and promulgated by traditionalists who made observations during a time when the Internet was in its infancy and IT was still trying to justify its existence to a corporate board.

Today, however, both technology and the Internet continue to amaze us as they shrink the world and improve efficiency, communication and connectivity in virtually every facet of our life. In fact, their influence on globalization is so deep and widespread that it is hard to defend a lot of traditional business processes and practices.

The rise of demand driven supply networks (DDSN), development of the Internet and growth of globalization have created a level of competition that forces companies to seek out Lean strategies to help them compete and grow.

Demand Driven Supply Networks, the Internet and globalization are interconnected and all play integral roles in shaping the market environment that exists today. Through globalization and Lean objectives, companies are able to offer more to their customers for less, and in effect, lay the groundwork for DDSNs as well as foster the development of the Internet. DDSNs need a system that can respond to demand in real time, across a network of suppliers and employees. This network of suppliers, a product of globalization, can only develop the superior responsiveness required through the use of the Internet.

Because real-time information is so critical, the Internet is regarded as an essential tool to actualize the full potential of globalization and DDSNs. By recognizing and utilizing these three forces correctly, a company can achieve the ultimate goal of every manufacturer: To deliver the right products to the right customers, at the right place and at the right time.

Conclusion

Faced with the competitive challenges of globalization, manufacturers must now look past their own organization and adopt a wider perspective, analyzing competitive advantages and identifying opportunities on a supply chain level. Progressive manufacturers today need to create new models capable of performing optimally in today's demand driven supply chains. Lean has gone way beyond the factory walls and now encompasses all aspects of business, in effect extending itself across the entire enterprise. The market now requires leaner processes that focus on full collaboration externally, among suppliers and customers, as well as internally, among the various functions of operations. This outward focus is propelled by the objectives of customer management instead of waste prevention/reduction. Improvements are employee driven, not by project teams, which creates a much more dynamic environment that is flexible and responsive.

To be sure, implementing Lean calls for a degree of discipline, adherence to Lean principles and practices in a way that is properly tailored to the manufacturer's business model, business processes and corporate goals and objectives. However, when planned and implemented properly, using a value-based approach, Lean can have a real, lasting and positive impact on the entire enterprise – its people, its processes, its competitive position and its overall business performance.

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About Glovia Services, Inc.

Glovia Services, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Glovia International, Inc., a subsidiary of Fujitsu Limited (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 6702), one of the world's most experienced and solidly backed providers of extended ERP solutions for businesses of any size-from small and midsized companies to global enterprises. Glovia Services offers GSInnovate web-based manufacturing software from pluggable point solutions to a comprehensive on-demand ERP suite that provides for the unique needs of engineer-to-order, make-to-order, high volume and mixed-mode manufacturing environments through comprehensive, end-to-end functionality for the entire product life-cycle. Headquartered in El Segundo, California, Glovia Services has helped manufacturers to cut costs, improve productivity, and meet customer demands for over 30 years. For more information please visit www.gsinnovate.com, or call 310-563-8700 or 877-474-8896 (toll free).

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu is a leading provider of IT-based business solutions for the global marketplace. With approximately 160,000 employees supporting customers in 70 countries, Fujitsu combines a worldwide corps of systems and services experts with highly reliable computing and communications products and advanced microelectronics to deliver added value to customers. Headquartered in Tokyo, Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 5.3 trillion yen (US$53 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2008. For more information, please see: www.fujitsu.com.

About the GSInnovate Industry Insight Series

Glovia Services strives to equip manufacturers with the expert knowledge and best practices gained from our own manufacturing and technology experience. The GSInnovate Industry Insight Series provides manufacturers with the latest resources to effectively manage their business on demand.

The Pressure is on Manufacturers

No industry in the U.S. has been hit harder by globalization or faces more challenges than manufacturing where the innovation and rapid growth of the past has become a much less likely scenario for the future. In fact, for individual companies—it's often no longer a question of the growth and profitability they can achieve. More likely, it's a question of whether or not they will survive as a company.

But, of course, all is not lost. As a manufacturer, the ability to innovate and adapt that served you well in the past can also serve you well in the future as your company strives to keep pace with its new business environment. You have many ways to take on your competitive challenges, but one response stands as critical, if not the most critical. That is improving the efficiency of your business.

Improved business process efficiency drives everything else that is important to your success:

• customer satisfaction
• innovative new product introductions
• effective supplier relationships
• positive employee morale

Because it is so fundamental, improving business performance has long been a focus of manufacturers. But in most situations, the easy gains have already been made - such as pruning the workforce, buying more efficient production equipment and negotiating better deals with suppliers. Often manufacturers have stopped short of upgrading their IT infrastructure with an advanced enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, on the assumption that only the largest companies can expect to get a return on their investment in ERP. But the business environment has changed - and so have the options for leveraging sophisticated ERP capabilities. For many manufacturers moving to an advanced ERP solution may be the right next step in their quest to be more competitive. In this whitepaper, we offer insights into the business challenges that can make ERP the right next step for your business. We also offer insights into how manufacturers can leverage the business benefits of ERP and, among other things, level the playing field with competitors who have exploited ERP functionality for many years.

Telltale Signs: When an ERP System is Right for Your Business

Many of the warning signs prevalent at manufacturing firms are also the telltale signs that the time is right to pursue implementing their first ERP solution or upgrading a legacy solution that no longer serves their needs. Every one of the business challenges outlined below may not exist at your company, but the odds are that one or more will be familiar and this may indicate that implementing an ERP solution can have a significant positive impact on your business.

"Islands of Automation" impede communication and necessitate duplicative effort.

The inability of business applications to communicate with one another is a common challenge for many manufacturers. This scenario often occurs at manufacturing businesses who use standalone office applications like Quickbooks and Microsoft Excel to support their operations. It is also a common scenario for manufacturing companies that implemented early generation ERP, MRP or MRP II solutions many years ago, but whereby business has undergone significant change in the ensuing years. For manufacturers with early generation enterprise solutions, the problems are frequently aggravated by the fact that their maintenance contract has lapsed and the cost to bring it up to date or upgrade the solution with a new version is prohibitive.

When applications cannot communicate with one another, employees are forced to enter the same business information multiple times in different applications. With most workforces already stretched thin, this is a costly waste of time. Duplicate data entry also creates more likelihood for errors and inconsistencies that can hamper business efficiency.

Beyond wasted and error-prone activity, islands of automation also hamper effective decision-making because employees lack visibility into parts of the business that are beyond their immediate responsibility. For example, if a company has multiple, non-integrated applications, there is a greater likelihood that inventory control will be inadequate and the purchasing department will get caught off guard on the status of inventory essential to keeping the production line operating smoothly. Islands of automation also can adversely impact production processes because of the structural communications problems that prevent a business from leveraging lean manufacturing and eKanban practices. Finance and accounting processes often are hindered by poor internal communications capabilities. In addition, communications with customers may be adversely impacted because order management and fulfillment processes are inadequate.

You have to cut more costs, but don't know how.

The pressure to reduce expenses has faced manufacturers for many years and events are conspiring to make matters worse. First, the emergence of manufacturing in low cost countries has put more pressure on established U.S. manufacturers to meet even lower per unit costs. Second, the easily achieved cost savings have been identified and achieved. For example, staffing at many manufacturing companies has already been cut to the bare minimum, so the workforce is as lean as possible. And at several of these companies, old inefficient production equipment has been replaced with new equipment that works faster and more economically, with reduced energy consumption.

One of the only areas left to look is to optimize core business applications. This has seldom been the first place a manufacturer looks for cost reductions, in part, because of the perception that implementing a comprehensive enterprise software solution will be a complicated, disruptive and expensive endeavor. However, having wrung out the other inefficiencies in their operations, many manufacturers can no longer ignore the potential of an ERP solution to take their business to a new level of efficiency.

You're losing the innovative edge that made you successful in the first place.

Innovation is how many manufacturers got their start and built a successful business. But innovation isn't a one-time event, a fact that is especially true given the heightened competitiveness of the current manufacturing environment. For many companies, and perhaps yours, innovation has fallen by the wayside as all efforts have been placed on getting the greatest return possible from the existing portfolio.

The problem, of course, is that because product innovation continues at other companies eventually every manufacturing company must innovate with new products or new business models. This need to innovate is driving many companies to look for ways to make their business more efficient, thus freeing up the resources needed to support major new research and development initiatives.

You're not meeting customer demands for information.

Customer expectations are increasing. They want more product variety, higher quality and faster fulfillment of their orders. The customers of manufacturers that have intense competitive pressures of their own are increasingly pressing for more information on orders. But for manufacturers, delivering the information about such things as production and delivery schedules is hampered by poor access to information across the enterprise. If this problem exists at your company, an ERP solution will help by enhancing your ability to communicate within your company and with your customers.

The ABCs of ERP: What an ERP System Can Do To Improve Your Business Performance

ERP systems can level the playing field for manufacturers that find themselves in a pitched battle against competitors by delivering a wide range of business benefits. With an ERP system up and running, small manufacturers are able to:

• Improve sourcing and procurement for reduced product costs and better inventory control
• Enhance order management and fulfillment for improved closure rates and stronger customer relationships
• Enable lean manufacturing and eKanban for more efficient production processes
• Collaborate across the enterprise for streamlined operation
• Improve finance and accounting processes for faster decision-making and better cash management

These business benefits are achieved as a result of a wide range of specific capabilities inherent in all current generation ERP systems. An ERP solution can improve your business performance because it:

Streamlines your business processes. With ERP, individual business processes are better linked so operational velocity increases as one event in your business automatically triggers the next.

Enables you to eliminate non-value add activities. The single, enterprise-wide database that is implemented as part of an ERP system means that data can be entered once and then used easily and error-free to support multiple business processes.

Creates a single dashboard for enhanced visibility. The linkage of business processes and a common database provides employees in one area with visibility into all parts of the business necessary to do their job. For example, the enhanced visibility enabled by an ERP solution means that your purchasing department can keep a careful eye on inventory levels and accelerate or slow down orders in ways that assure your production line is not disrupted by unplanned shutdowns due to parts shortages or your costs increase because of unnecessary inventory.

Enables you to invest in innovation. The reduced operational costs made possible by ERP solutions will free up money to invest in new products.

Enhances your reporting capabilities. With better linkage between business processes and better collection and analysis of information, an ERP solution will help streamline the process for creating business reports, while simultaneously producing higher-quality reports that facilitate better decision making.

Enhanced external communications. As an ERP system provides you with better visibility throughout your business, it also helps to improve the communication across your supply chain. This is particularly useful in today's environment as manufacturers are increasingly doing business with suppliers and customers in other countries and must rely on effective electronic communication to make this possible.

Reduces business risk. The combined capabilities of an ERP system—better communications, better reporting and analytics and more efficient production and non-production processes—reduce a company's overall business risk. Because an ERP system gives you better visibility into your business, you can identify potential risks with greater precision. And because you have more efficient business processes, you can respond faster and more effectively to individual risks and, in the process, better serve your customers.

You Can Choose the Approach to Take

Once it becomes apparent that a manufacturer needs to leverage ERP functionality, there are two basic approaches that can be taken. In one approach, the company will license either an end-to-end ERP solution or one or more best-of-breed solutions that address specific business processes. In general this approach also requires a company to purchase a maintenance contract to support the new solution and new hardware on which to implement the solution.

There are downsides to the traditional ERP model While the traditional approach may appear to offer the most control, there are number of downsides:

• Major upfront investment in new hardware and software is required
• There is a need to hire or contract new technical staff to keep the system running
• Significant time and expense also will need to be devoted to training the IT staff on the intricacies of the new system and in training other employees in using the system

There is a viable alternative

The alternative to investing in new ERP software, new hardware and new technical staff is to get the ERP functionality your business needs from Software- as- a-Service (SaaS) provider. With the SaaS approach, there is a recurring monthly fee for a Web-based ERP solution. Typically the fees are based on the specific functionality and capacity that your business uses and can increase or decrease depending on your requirements.

The research of a number of analyst firms indicates that many manufacturers will increasingly be evaluating Web-based ERP solutions as a strategic move. For example, AMR Research was quoted in Managing Automation (12/28/06) as finding that although only 9% of respondents in a current survey are currently using on-demand or usage-based software licensing models for the ERP systems, 18% said they want to try the on-demand approach in the future.

The Advantages of ERP Delivered as a Service

An increasing number of manufacturers are discovering the advantages of forsaking an in-house ERP implementation in favor of an outsourced business model. Accessing ERP from a service provider has appeal for many manufacturers because it can deliver more business value, faster and at reduced costs than a purchased solution. More specifically, the advantages include:

Faster time to Value. With a Web-based ERP solution, your company can avoid the time, expense and potential for business disruption associated with the use of in-house applications. While most traditional ERP solutions take 6-12 months or more to implement, a Web-based solution can up and running in less than 3 months. Because you in effect plug your business into an existing state-of-the-art ERP infrastructure, the risk of disruption to your business is virtually eliminated. The speed to value is also better because employee training can be focused strictly on the business process level, leaving the technical details of running the solution to your service provider.

No upfront investment. By taking a Web-based approach to your ERP solution, upfront expenditures on licenses, maintenance contracts and new staff can be allocated instead to investments that directly improve your business, such as new product development, new production equipment or new sales and marketing initiatives.

Predictable, long-term costs. With a traditional solution, the initial license and maintenance agreements are only a small part of the real cost of ownership over time. Long-term liabilities also include the ongoing costs of new IT resources, each of which will cost approximately $100K per year. By contrast, with a Web-based solution, you know the total ongoing cost upfront. Monthly fees are aligned with your business needs because they only change if your capacity requirements change due to a business expansion or contraction.

Access to only the rich ERP capabilities you need. By working with an ERP service provider who specializes in manufacturing your company can get the industry-specific functionality that best meets its needs. In addition, storage is scaleable so you only pay for the capacity that meets your current needs. By accessing only these capabilities, you are not forced to purchase functionality and capacity that you don't require.

Availability of top-level IT expertise. Because delivering ERP is their core mission, service providers have IT experts on staff who know the intricacies of the ERP solution you are using and can more quickly and efficiently address issues that arise. By contrast, with a software license solution any problem that can't be handled internally must be addressed through the software vendor's support organization. In many instances the vendor will only advise your IT personnel on how to correct the problem, leaving the onus on your staff to make the fix.

Availability of the latest technology. As with IT expertise, ERP service providers have a powerful incentive to provide the most advanced ERP functionality available. A service provider will leverage its economies of scale to bring on line new ERP functionality that can boost the business value of your solution. What is a seamless upgrade process with a Web-based solution can be a costly and disruptive software re-implementation with a purchased solution.

Risk mitigation. With a Web-based solution, your company can take advantage of numerous security and risk-mitigation capabilities. For example, your key business information and systems will be housed in a dedicated data center with redundant power, fire protection, cooling and climate control and the capability to withstand hurricane-force winds. A well-established, timely back-up process can be implemented to protect your business from disruption due to unplanned business events and natural disasters.

Conclusion

With globalization a reality, manufacturers must make their business as efficient and agile as possible. In response, many U.S. manufacturers are adapting to the threats inherent in globalization by adapting their business model to focus more on the assembly of product components that are manufactured in low cost countries. In addition, many manufacturers are searching for ways to make their business processes more efficient so they can free up resources to develop innovative new products and strengthen customer relationships.

Regardless of whether your company sees its future in product innovation, business model innovation or both, leveraging a Web-based manufacturing ERP solution can play a fundamentally important role in the long-term success of your company.

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About Glovia Services, Inc.

Glovia Services, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Glovia International, Inc., a subsidiary of Fujitsu Limited (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 6702), one of the world's most experienced and solidly backed providers of extended ERP solutions for businesses of any size-from small and midsized companies to global enterprises. Glovia Services offers GSInnovate web-based manufacturing software from pluggable point solutions to a comprehensive on-demand ERP suite that provides for the unique needs of engineer-to-order, make-to-order, high volume and mixed-mode manufacturing environments through comprehensive, end-to-end functionality for the entire product life-cycle. Headquartered in El Segundo, California, Glovia Services has helped manufacturers to cut costs, improve productivity, and meet customer demands for over 30 years. For more information please visit www.gsinnovate.com, or call 310-563-8700 or 877-474-8896 (toll free).

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu is a leading provider of IT-based business solutions for the global marketplace. With approximately 160,000 employees supporting customers in 70 countries, Fujitsu combines a worldwide corps of systems and services experts with highly reliable computing and communications products and advanced microelectronics to deliver added value to customers. Headquartered in Tokyo, Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 5.3 trillion yen (US$53 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2008. For more information, please see: www.fujitsu.com.

About the GSInnovate Industry Insight Series

Glovia Services strives to equip manufacturers with the expert knowledge and best practices gained from our own manufacturing and technology experience. The GSInnovate Industry Insight Series provides manufacturers with the latest resources to effectively manage their business on demand.

For manufacturers in today's fast-paced, fiercely competitive business climate, winning customers and increasing revenues depends on much more than simply providing high quality products that meet a customer's specifications. More than ever, the race to close sales and fulfill customer orders is won by manufacturers capable of operating with the speed and agility required to produce and deliver the right products to the right customers - when, where and how they are needed.

Often this race comes down to a battle of supply chain effectiveness and customer responsiveness. Many companies do not have the large sales and customer service teams required to respond effectively. As a result, their business processes and transactions with material suppliers, as well as communication with customers may become inundated with excess paperwork, multiple phone calls, and unexpected delays due to lack of timely information or the right materials.

Fortunately, advanced manufacturing solutions and the Internet make it possible to change all that. In this paper, we will take a closer look at how manufacturers can leverage the power of real-time, end-to-end supply chain portals to create leaner and more efficient operations with supply chain partners and, at the same time, achieve new levels of customer responsiveness and satisfaction.

The Need for Speed and Efficiency Beyond the "Four Walls"

Many manufacturers have discovered that they can deploy deeply functional enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions in a convenient pay-as-you-go Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery model. With an integrated SaaS ERP system in place, they gain greater control and visibility across a broad range of internal business process actions - from product management, inventory control and manufacturing, to financial, accounting and performance analysis and reporting. In virtually all cases, these internal improvements have delivered measurable operational benefits and return on investment.

What has often been lacking, however, is the manufacturer's ability to extend this interaction and collaboration beyond the four walls of the enterprise - from material and component suppliers at one end of the spectrum, to customers at the other end. The solution is to select and deploy a Web-based portal, or intranet, to serve each of these critical constituencies.

With today's technology, browser-accessible supplier and customer portals can be integrated at key touchpoints with the existing SaaS ERP system, thus providing manufacturers with a safe and secure interactive tool that enables authorized users to communicate key information, automate numerous processes, and perform business transactions in real time.

No manufacturer striving to compete globally in the 21st century can deny the urgent need for increased speed, innovation, and customer service. With the continuing trend towards lean production, demand-driven supply chains, and just-in-time (JIT) delivery, manufacturers are constantly pressured by customers to respond faster, shorten product life cycles, speed up time to market, and deliver more product customization and packaging options than ever before. The value of Web-based portals lies in their ability to facilitate two-way communications and collaborative workflow in real time so that these goals may be met.

How can Web-based portals help in achieving a leaner, more efficient, and more customer-focused supply chain? And, what kinds of functionality should manufacturers look for in evaluating and selecting supplier and customer portals?

Evaluating Supplier Portals: Real-Time Communication and Materials Synchronization

Many supply chains do not perform as efficiently as they should because manufacturers and their suppliers do not always have the means to communicate as quickly and effectively as they need to. Complex global supply networks, vastly differing time zones, excessive paperwork requirements, multiple levels of approval - all of these can cause delays in communication, which can hinder a manufacturer's ability to meet production schedules and timely order fulfillment.

As a result, many manufacturers are forced to expedite supply orders or carry costly safety inventory to respond to unexpected or rush orders. With a portal solution giving both the manufacturer and supplier a real-time view of order and materials management, both parties would be working from the same demand information and timetable and could synchronize their activities accordingly.

A richly functional supplier portal would improve communications and collaboration between manufacturers and their suppliers by providing the following capabilities:

• Status Overview to present a performance dashboard summarizing the status of critical activities, with the ability to drill down into details and action required. For example, an effective dashboard would provide critical information regarding open orders, overdue shipments, upcoming shipments, order changes requiring acknowledgement, and re-order/replenishment point requirements.
• Supplier Message Boards to enable manufacturers to create and publish messages that would be automatically seen when the supplier logs on. Recipients could be targeted with user-definable attributes, such as all suppliers, individual suppliers, specific types of suppliers, etc.
• Alerts Portal to ensure that suppliers have read messages and to establish dates for alert acknowledgement and/or response.
• Inquiries Capabilities to enhance visibility regarding key issues such as purchase or blanket orders, material receipts, returns to vendor, and payment information.
• Collaborative Order Management to enable manufacturers and suppliers to work together in real time to ensure that materials are shipped and received in a timely way to fulfill customer demand. This capability would provide suppliers with visibility into the manufacturer's production plans, required items and dates, so they could plan their own production to meet actual demand.

With the help of a secure supplier portal, manufacturers would be able to reduce sourcing and inventory costs and manage their materials inventory more efficiently and cost-effectively. An electronic portal would also open the door to the creation and deployment of demand-driven material management strategies, such as Electronic Kanban signals, supplier-managed inventory, consigned inventory, and blanket orders. Manufacturers could also use the portal to quickly and efficiently execute spot buys to fulfill critical or unexpected orders.

Through the portal, suppliers would gain better insight into their customer's production plans and material requirements and thus be better prepared to meet them. A well-designed portal would also provide suppliers with easy, ready-to-use tools for preparing required documentation, such as packing slips, advance ship and ship notices, carrier information, expected delivery date, Bill of Lading number, and similar electronic and printed documents.

Evaluating Customer Portals: Reduced Service Costs, Higher Customer Satisfaction

When it comes to customer service, manufacturers face a paradoxical challenge: They need to minimize sales and service-related costs, yet make it as easy as possible for customers to do business with them. A Web-based customer portal can make it possible to do both. In fact, a well-designed collaborative customer portal can actually lead to higher levels of customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Some of the major complaints customers routinely voice about the manufacturers they buy from or wish to buy from include:

• Excessively slow response to product or order inquiries, order or engineering changes, and quote requests (RFQs)
• Lack of accurate information forthcoming regarding sales quotes, order status, in-stock inventory and back ordered products, available-to-promise and delivery dates
• Product configuration errors and delivery of erroneous or incomplete orders

Conversely, some of the "pain points" manufacturers point to when it comes to how their sales organizations and customers currently interact include:

• Receipt of complex orders having inaccurate or incomplete information and subsequently requiring multiple hand-offs, thus prolonging the quote-to-order process
• Difficulty associated with proffering accurate quotations, especially on complex orders, leading to inconsistent pricing and often margin erosion
• Customer dissatisfaction due to lengthy sales order processing and response times, which can lead to unhappy customers and lost sales

An effective customer portal can help alleviate all of these situations. With a fully interactive portal in place, customers would gain 24/7, self-service access to sales quote, sales order, and order status information over a secure Internet site. Thus empowered from anywhere on the globe, customers would no longer have to wait for a response to their inquiries from a manufacturer's sales or service representative.

A customer portal could also support product search, selection and configuration guidelines, all of which would shorten the quote-to-order cycle time and enable faster, more informed buying decisions - with less sales or service intervention and fewer downstream errors.

A well-designed portal would improve communications and collaboration between manufacturers and their customers and prospects by providing the following key capabilities:

• Streamline Selling Processes by enabling customers and prospects to search online for specific products and obtain accurate quotes instantly on standard stock items, standard non-stock items, and special order or configured items. Portals also can provide a host of online guided selling tools such as product catalogs, specifications, data sheets, photos, and engineering drawings.
• Streamline Sales Order and Quote-to-Order Processes' by enabling a manufacturer's sales personnel to record and track customer profiles and sales quote information, support flexible pricing structures and volume discounts, and carry on two-way communications with customers via the Internet rather than phone or fax.
• Seamless Integration with key modules in the SaaS ERP solution that would eliminate redundant data entry and minimize data entry errors, as well as provide instant validation of orders and confirmation of product availability. This integration can also enable the sales/marketing organization to run sales reports and analyses, and allow the accounting team to perform instant credit checks.
• Comprehensive Order Tracking and Management which can help identify sales status and predictability, and increase revenues through strategies such as cross-selling, up-selling, special promotions, and product substitution where appropriate.
• Value-Added Service Options including such strategies as consigned inventory arrangements and automated product replenishment triggers, which can help manufacturers minimize financial exposure and keep inventories lean, while providing key customers with value-added, loyalty-building services.

Conclusion: Web-Based Portals Benefit All Participants

Clearly, the deployment of secure and well-designed Web-based portals can be a sound business investment. By putting manufacturers and their suppliers on the same page, so to speak, an interactive Web-based supplier portal can deliver tremendous benefits in time and cost savings to both manufacturers and their suppliers - no matter how complex or far-flung the supply network happens to be. For both sides, the benefits to be gained include: lower transaction costs with fewer errors; reduction of administrative time and paperwork; greater visibility into future supply and demand; and higher levels of mutual trust and satisfaction.

Similarly, Web-based customer portals provide a powerful toolset that benefits both manufacturers and their customers through enhanced real-time communication, self-service, and collaboration. For manufacturers, these benefits typically include: reduced sales and customer service transaction costs; higher quote accuracy; better visibility of customer needs and requirements; improved customer service and satisfaction; and increased revenues due to shorter quote-to-order cycle times and fewer lost sales.

Customer benefits typically include: anywhere/anytime guided access to comprehensive product, pricing and ordering information; easy and intuitive "shopping cart" interface for simplified order entry on standard products; immediate order validation and confirmation of product availability and delivery dates, as well as fast, self-service access to order status information.

Working seamlessly in conjunction with a SaaS ERP solution, supplier and customer portals can increase efficiency and reduce costs up and down the entire supply chain. The result of this relatively modest investment in end-to-end supply chain collaboration can deliver significant returns in terms of greater visibility and agility, measurable cost savings - and gaining an edge over competitors.

Entrepreneurship has long been the foundation of a thriving economy. In the entrepreneurial tradition, people have brought visionary ideas to life and innovative new products to market through careful planning, hard work, perseverance, and smart organizational, management and marketing skills. Using this time-honored methodology, many manufacturers have successfully grown larger, and a select few have evolved into global enterprises.

With the growth of globalization and technology advances, however, the traditional world of entrepreneurship has changed. Today's growth-oriented businesses face challenges unheard of a few decades ago. To compete in this fast-moving world economy, manufacturers are under pressure to work longer and harder to streamline operations, reduce costs and waste, and increase efficiency and productivity. To level the competitive landscape with competitors at home and abroad, they have to be leaner, more agile, and capable of making fast, astute financial and operational decisions that will maximize profitability and enable growth.

In addition, many manufacturers have built their businesses as a reliable supply source of components and assemblies required by top tier OEMs in the automotive, aviation, electronics, industrial and consumer goods industries. These suppliers are increasingly feeling pressure from their customers to meet defined price points, provide product customization, ensure just-in-time delivery, or provide documentation for quality control and third-party regulatory requirements. To comply with these mandates, manufacturers often have to reevaluate and reengineer their business processes if they are to remain competitive, as well as profitable.

Technology is Key to Growing a Successful Business

Over the past decade or more, advances in information and communications technology have had a dramatic effect on all of us - ranging from our personal life and entertainment choices to how we manage our business life.

One business technology solution that virtually every leading manufacturer has long had in its competitive toolbox is Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), a suite of integrated software applications that enable an enterprise to automate many key business processes and synchronize operations, internally and externally, to speed up time-to-market, cash-to-cash cycles, and customer fulfillment. Thanks to continuing technological advances, this "mature" technology, once designed solely for very large manufacturers, is now available in many forms for manufacturers of all sizes.

Typical Business Process "Pain Points"

If you were to ask the CEO, CFO, or VP of Operations of a manufacturing firm what "pain points" the company is experiencing and what processes they would like to improve, chances are the responses would include one or more of the following:

• Gain tighter control of inventory accuracy and costs
• More accurately estimate product costing
• Improve materials procurement and supplier management
• Speed up sales order and purchase order processing
• Streamline product engineering and engineering changes
• Gain greater visibility of financials to optimize cash flow and analyze business performance in real-time, rather than from a historical perspective

In this paper, we will describe how ERP can help companies achieve all of these goals, and much more. And, we will explain why ERP's inherent ability to integrate and streamline information flow across the enterprise is so critical for manufacturers today - not merely to compete, but to thrive and grow in the fiercely competitive 21st Century world of manufacturing.

What an increasing number of progressive growth-oriented manufacturers are discovering is that the latest generation of advanced Enterprise Resource Planning solutions can provide an essential tool for achieving global visibility and agility - and can help optimize operational and financial performance today and into the future.

ERP Value Proposition: Integrated, Real-Time Information Flow

As a manufacturer, you have probably already stepped up efforts to try to improve the aforementioned business processes in order to reduce costs, eliminate waste, and minimize inefficiencies that result from non-value added activities. You may have upgraded your manufacturing equipment for higher speed production, negotiated more favorable pricing contracts with materials suppliers, or implemented tighter quality control measures to foster an environment of continuous improvement.

These are all worthy and effective initiatives that reflect the "lean manufacturing" and "demand-driven supply chain" philosophy prevalent today. However, to paraphrase what one pundit observed during the crest of the cost-cutting frenzy, blindly slashing costs across the board without improving business processes can cut a company right out of business. Too often, in these cases, reducing costs can result in reducing profitability, destroying innovation, and downgrading customer service and satisfaction. This is not a good way to retain customers and grow a business.

Experience teaches us that manufacturing business processes are interdependent, from front end to back end. Every single process - from sales order and purchase order management, to inventory control and procurement, to engineering and manufacturing, to accounting functions, cash flow management and financial reporting - is essential to your business, and all have an impact, for better or worse, on overall business performance.

If you think about it, the common thread running through all of these business processes is information. Inquiries, purchase orders, and RFQs from potential customers to manufacturers define their order requirements and specifications. Information from manufacturers to their suppliers communicates what will be needed, where and when to fulfill production demands. Internal departments, such as engineering, production planning and scheduling, manufacturing, accounting and others, need to exchange information in a timely way to trigger events in the proper sequence and avoid costly mistakes.

For this reason, it is essential to maximize rapid information flow and to foster collaboration across the enterprise by providing real-time data to all who need it to make critical operational and financial decisions, and respond quickly to customer demand. The end goal of timely information flow is, of course, to ensure that customer orders are fulfilled as promised and, ultimately, to maximize profits and grow the business.

Why the Resistance to ERP?

We have all heard and read about some of the negative experiences companies have had with their ERP implementation. Common complaints include:

• High upfront licensing and implementation costs
• The cost of modifications and additions to the hardware infrastructure
• Huge budget overruns due to indecision, inadequate project management, and "scope creep" - which can easily occur when objectives and parameters are not clearly defined
• Lengthy implementations that disrupt business operations
• Ongoing integration and interoperability headaches, even after "go-live"
• The need to expand and support larger, more expensive IT staffs to administer, maintain the infrastructure, and upgrade the software when required

All of these factors can be discouraging for the leadership of a manufacturing business seeking to find a technology-based enterprise business solution to replace manual methods, or to update an outdated system that is no longer adequate for their needs.

As a result, some manufacturers continue to struggle along with outdated legacy ERP or MRP systems that still "kind of work." Many are still relying on manual methods for some business processes, which can create delays or bottlenecks in process workflows - causing orders to be held up because of minor engineering changes, or in waiting for essential materials to be reordered.

Numerous businesses have turned to point technology solutions - such as spreadsheet-based accounting software, product configuration programs, or demand forecasting applications. These non-integrated solutions may serve short-term needs but they are seldom scalable, and they tend to create islands of isolated information in key functional areas of the organization, which certainly does not allow for real-time information flow and collaboration.

In short, many manufacturers still view ERP to be a technology tool designed solely for running very large enterprises. They believe that for them, implementing ERP would require too much time, money and complexity, and would also require too many consultants, too many choices, and far too much technical expertise.

Advanced Manufacturing Solutions

Information technology and network communications have seen enormous advances in the past few years, largely enabled by the Internet. As a result, many innovations have evolved and are spurring a new era of growth. One industry analyst in the manufacturing technology sector recently predicted that the worldwide market for ERP applications, currently at about $18 billion, is expected to grow to $25 billion by 2011.

Today, there are more choices than ever before when it comes to selecting and implementing ERP. As a manufacturing business, you will want to find the right ERP for your business - one that fits your business model, is easy to learn and use, and offers all of the features and functionality needed to automate and manage critical manufacturing processes, without excessive complexity.

You also want to ensure that the ERP system you select will scale effectively as your business grows and offers an open architecture that enables its integration at key touch points with your existing information systems. Finally, you will want to evaluate the solution in some depth to ensure that it has the flexibility to be configured to your needs and business processes as your business grows and changes.

The Emergence of Software-as-a-Service ERP

One of the most promising ERP innovations to hit the marketplace is the packaging of a fully functional, on-demand ERP system accessible to users on a monthly subscription basis in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery model. The SaaS delivery model is a proven methodology pioneered by developers of Salesforce Automation (SFA) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software solutions.

The success and rapid adoption of SaaS SFA and CRM applications by businesses of all sizes has led to the development of Enterprise Resource Planning systems built on a Web-based SaaS delivery model. This trend is gaining traction, as evidenced by the fact that several leading ERP solution providers have developed or are developing SaaS versions. The SaaS model provides a practical, low risk approach to manufacturers that can give them powerful ERP functionality at an affordable monthly subscription price based on number of users and applications used.

Because SaaS is a hosted solution, the entry barriers of traditional licensed ERP implementations are removed. With SaaS, there are no upfront licensing costs, no IT infrastructure modifications required, no lengthy implementations to contend with, and no need to hire and support additional IT resources to implement and maintain the infrastructure or the software applications. These responsibilities are borne by the software vendor who is accountable to you for the system's ongoing performance and reliability.

In short, the right SaaS ERP, implemented properly, can provide maximum value with minimal investment and low risk - which means manufacturing businesses can focus their employees on their core competencies, and their financial resources on profitability and growth.

Improving Business Processes - From End to End

At this point, you might well ask: "Practically speaking, how can the automation and integration provided by ERP help manufacturing firms streamline and optimize key business processes?" Good question. Consider the following, which represent typical results and benefits reported by manufacturers that have already made the leap and implemented a suite of integrated ERP applications.

Inventory Management

• Proactively manages all inventories from dock-to-stock
• Provides full automation of inventories, reducing work and increasing accuracy
• Eliminates the need for costly quarterly or annual physical inventories
• Provides flexibility to do business with suppliers and customers on their terms, while managing inventory on yours

Sales and Order Management

• Automates and simplifies sales quote-to-order business process between Sales and Finance
• Improves time-to-delivery by streamlining collaboration between Sales and Manufacturing
• Increases customer loyalty and retention by enhancing customer services and real-time collaboration

Procurement and Supplier Management

• Automates and simplifies the entire procure-to-payment process by better managing supplier relationships and cash flow
• Reduces inventory levels to better align costs with business while ensuring customer needs are met
• Provides procurement professionals with the tools they need to buy the right parts from the right suppliers at the right price

Product Management - Costing and Estimating

• Improves lifecycle cost management through fast, accurate and flexible costing
• Enhances the ability to manage cost structures with a focus on quality, while keeping an eye on profit margins
• Provides tools for generating faster, more accurate estimates, quotes and bids, which increases sales and customer service, while maintaining profitability
• The payback from a successful ERP implementation can be significant in terms of reduced operating costs, improved productivity, and higher profit margins - all of which have a positive impact on bottom-line performance.

Engineering

• Helps reduce time-to-market by streamlining and automating key engineering processes and engineering change orders
• Enables real-time collaboration between Engineering, Sales and Manufacturing, resulting in faster time to delivery
• Improves production floor activities by eliminating waste and errors and optimizing allocation of labor, materials, and equipment

Manufacturing

• Automates and streamlines a host of processes, such as work order generation, Bills of Material, production routing, and work-in-process transactions to ensure smooth and coordinated production
• Provides eKanban capabilities to automate the flow of materials and components in Just-in-Time and lean manufacturing environments
• Provides production planners with a powerful toolset for efficient Materials Requirements Planning and Master Production Scheduling.
• Financial Management
• Streamlines and automates financial and accounting processes through closer collaboration with Sales, Manufacturing, Inventory Management, Procurement,
• and Supplier Management
• Accelerates monthly, quarterly, and yearly closing processes
• Increases financial visibility, while reducing tedious, time-consuming data entry, tracking and reporting
• Improves cash flow management and order-to-cash cycles

ERP Payback: Total Visibility, Reduced Costs, Tighter Control

The results cited above demonstrate that the timely and integrated information flow enabled by an Enterprise Resource Planning system can have a profound and long-term effect on a manufacturer's operational and financial performance. It's important to note that the benefits reported here pertain not just to the CEO/owner, CFO, or VP of Operations, but also to the professional managers and workers in each of these functional areas.

With so many new and advanced technology solutions now available, it is hard to fathom why today's businesses would choose to settle for the smaller efficiencies provided by a handful of disparate, non-integrated business process solutions when they could easily gain an abundance of value from a fully integrated ERP solution.

The payback from a successful ERP implementation can be significant in terms of reduced operating costs, improved productivity, and higher profit margins - all of which have a positive impact on bottom-line performance. And, by increasing competitive advantage, ERP can help manufacturers improve customer satisfaction and retention, and open the door to new markets and increased revenue streams - results that improve top-line performance, as well.

Clearly, in the face of today's challenges, the time is right for entrepreneurial manufacturers to take a new look at the state of enterprise manufacturing solutions today - especially if their corporate goals are to compete globally and accelerate growth.

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About Glovia Services, Inc.

Glovia Services, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Glovia International, Inc., a subsidiary of Fujitsu Limited (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 6702), one of the world's most experienced and solidly backed providers of extended ERP solutions for businesses of any size-from small and midsized companies to global enterprises. The powerful and flexible Glovia ERP suite, glovia.com, provides for the unique needs of engineer-to-order, make-to-order, high volume and mixed-mode manufacturing environments through comprehensive, end-to-end functionality for the entire product lifecycle. Headquartered in El Segundo, California, Glovia has helped manufacturers to cut costs, improve productivity, and meet customer demands for over 30 years. For more information please visit www. gsinnovate.com, or call 310-563-8700 or 877-474-8896 (toll free).

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu is a leading provider of customer-focused IT and communications solutions for the global marketplace. Pace-setting device technologies, highly reliable computing and communications products, and a worldwide corps of systems and services experts uniquely position Fujitsu to deliver comprehensive solutions that open up infinite possibilities for its customers' success. Headquartered in Tokyo, Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of about 5.1 trillion yen (US $43.2 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007, an increase of 6.4% over the previous fiscal year. For more information, please see: www.fujitsu.com.

About the GSInnovate Industry Insight Series

Glovia Services strives to equip manufacturers with the expert knowledge gained from its 30-years of manufacturing and technology experience. Through its GSInnovate Industry Insight Series, Glovia Services is helping to put ERP within reach for manufacturers of all sizes. The GSInnovate Industry Insight Series delivers resources for manufacturers that give them access to industry-leading whitepapers, smart webcasts, easy-to-navigate demos and more.