For those looking for ways to get a better quality product manufactured and delivered, faster, to customers, a recent webinar is definitely worth a listen.

Best practices for discrete manufacturers are detailed, including the importance of understanding and differentiating inventory-based and job-based methods of manufacturing. Typically, these methods follow quite different approaches for the classic quote/order>purchase materials>produce>ship>bill manufacturing process.

Inventory-based systems:

• Inventory maintenance (maintaining items in inventory)
• Purchase of materials (receiving items in inventory)
• Issue material (issue inventory to production)
• Receive production to inventory (receive items in inventory)
• Customer shipment (ship from inventory)
• Invoice entry (invoice the shipment)

This contrasts with more efficient job-based systems:

• Part on the fly (no maintenance in inventory)
• Reduced work (purchase direct to production)
• Reduced work (receive direct to production)
• Reduced work (accurate WIP)
• Reduced work (ship directly from WIP)
• Invoice entry (invoice the shipment)

Most manufacturers have mix of inventory and job-based practices, something that Epicor Express accommodates.

Express is a comprehensive software system for all types of discrete manufacturers. Whether you are in business as a stamping firm that makes standard products sold from inventory or a job shop that makes complex, multi-assembly custom products that involve numerous sub-contractors and iterations with the customer, Express can easily accommodate your unique requirements.

Key functionality within Epicor Express includes:

• Generating accurate estimates/quotes from scratch or job history
• Tracking orders and associated changes from placement through shipment
• Creating simple or unlimited, multi-level bill of materials
• Providing a centralized workbench for product engineering, workflow and revision control
• Accurately tracking standard product and custom job costs
• Sophisticated scheduling for optimally managing workloads and resource use
• Control routing, scheduling, costing and tracking on the shop floor
• Enabling “what if scenario” planning and changes “on-the-fly”
• Advanced functionality for accounting and financial analysis
• Extensive standard reports and advanced performance management tools

All of this is now available in a cloud-based version of Express, which facilitates flexibility of scheduling, review of performance on a job-by-job basis to support continuous improvement, and quality as part of the process— not contained in its own silo.

The advantages for small and mid-sized manufacturers include minimal upfront and reasonable ongoing investment, the elimination of traditional ERP barriers (e.g., implementation, system maintenance, upgrade and migrations), and enabling focus on a company’s core business rather than IT issues. All of this facilitates capacity for growth.

For more information on how cloud-based Epicor Express can help your small business, click here.

Posted by the Epicor Social Media Team