ERP, also known as Enterprise Resource Planning, is primarily used by companies to monitor, store, and then interpret data from the multiple business activities within a company.
Your ERP solution might also support human resources, inventory, order management, and customer relationship management. A core feature is the integration of the various aspects of your business, thereby providing a centralised system for all the different units in your company.
In 2017, it was reported that nearly 80% of organisations were implementing ERP into their work stream. Last year, we also saw a large rise in cloud-based ERP usage – with the number rising by 85% compared to the on-site deployment, which only represented the remaining 15%.
Especially within the manufacturing industry, we’ve seen that the interest in ERP solutions have gone through a dramatic rise over the last few years. So with that in mind, what are the most important ERP reporting metrics for manufacturers?
KPIs in ERP software for the manufacturing industry
By far, manufacturers are the number one users of ERP systems today. It’s an incredibly competitive industry, and it’s vital for companies to ensure that they are able to produce high-quality goods quickly, as well as making sure it’s as cost-effective as possible. To ensure this, the manufacturing industry relies heavily on KPIs, as these will help measure and determine how successful a company can be. In today’s competitive stage, it’s important to make informed and well-planned decisions based on this numbers.
ERP software is well-suited to tracking KPI – provided you choose the right solution and know which metrics are the right one. Luckily for you, our team of ERP experts have summed up the key metrics you as a manufacturer need to take note of in your ERP.
Costs
This is obviously a no-brainer. Keeping an eye on the costs is something all companies need to keep track of, and it’s doubly important for manufacturers due to the multiple stages in their manufacturing process, which requires different amounts of resources to complete.
Keeping track of the costs can be quite a pain, but it’s something that can easily be done with the aid of a good, fully-upgraded ERP solution. With a few clicks on the ERP dashboard, you can keep track of things such as landed costs, distribution, equipment, and cost of labour.
In addition to this, an ERP can also include a business intelligence module which can show you trends in your costs. This is helpful when forecasting where you will most likely need to put future resources.
Order Management
One of the more pressing concerns for manufacturers is returned products. This is quite a hassle, and, often, they might even result in a negative return. However, tracking your KPI in order management will help you reduce how many returns you need to process.
Most common causes of returns are usually defects and mistakes, as well as improper shipping management. This leads to an unhappy customer, which then again can potentially damage your brand. By making use of ERP to track order management statistics, you’ll be able to find out what’s causing these kinds of issues.
Let your ERP track the average value of orders, the time dedicated to these orders, refund rates, warranty activity, and of course, return percentage. Make use of this data to improve upon your processes, which will then lead to increased customer satisfaction.
Quality Assurance and Control
Every manufacturer knows the importance of quality.
First step in this direction would be to make sure your raw materials are in good condition, and that your chosen vendors are able to provide you with the high-quality materials you need. Tracking this is made easier by making use of ERP systems.
A nifty little feature, which you’ll definitely benefit from, is the ability to trace serial numbers that you can use to trace the products by lot and date. This is especially useful if you find that your product were tainted or otherwise damaged. This way, you can simply recall the specific affected product instead of the whole batch.
READ MORE: The Complete Review of Odoo ERP.
Sales
Yet another no-brainer, you might say. But there are actually multiple ways sales can be tracked through an ERP.
Examples of this can be follow-ups, lead response time, and rate of contact. With your CRM integrated to your ERP system, it will be easy to manage, synchronise, and analyse the data you need. Additionally, you’ll be able to use these methods to help your sales team understand and spot any points of improvements within the data.
Gap between inventory log and actual number of stocks
If you have yet to implement an ERP, you probably know first hand just how challenging it can be to have a 100% accuracy when it comes to the stings you have stored in your warehouse. Inventory deviation is almost impossible to avoid, but it’s quite possible to decrease the gap.
By using an ERP solution, you can have all transactions in inventory be performed in real-time through a warehouse management system. You’ll also benefit from more advanced tools such as RFID technology, or even some more common ones like barcoding.
Even if some amount of deviation happens, an ERP product allows you to at least have a chance at tracking most of it.
Production cycle time
Also known as the supply chain cycle time, this refers to the amount of time it takes for you to finish the process cycle – in other words, it can include the beginning up till the end of product creation. Of course, as you can surely tell by now, ERP software allows you to track this.
Your ERP automatically tracks and records these numbers, allowing you to find spots wherein you can improve production speed while not decreasing the quality of the final product. It shows you the parts of the process that take the most time, as well as point you in the right direction for improving efficiency. You can also track order actual cycle time, which is the time between the customer orders a product and when they receive it.
Inventory Turn Rate
Your solution can show you which goods are consuming the most carrying costs. It does this by monitoring which part of your inventory takes the longest to replace, as well as how long they stay in the warehouse on average.
This can be extremely useful, considering how manufacturers have a significant amount of money tied into their warehouses. This will reveal which inventory practices are inefficient, allowing you to think up a different way to make them more productive.
Downtime
In short, downtime refers to the amount of time your business is at standstill, for one reason or another. When this happen, you’re obviously not earning anything at all. How could you possibly prevent something like this?
Well, there isn’t a sure-fire way of having a 100% uptime. But, you do have the choice to make use of an ERP system to monitor whenever you experience downtime and then study the recordings in order to understand the reasons for such occurrences.
You simply need to find the right patterns in the data the ERP system has recorded for your purview. It may be equipment failure, or some other reason. Whatever it is, you can get to know more about it when you make use of ERP systems.
Ready to benefit from ERP?
Your enterprise resource planning solution can better the chances for collaboration between different parts of your business, and, essentially, create a centralised hub for all the data that has been gathered. Are you ready to reap the benefits of an ERP solution? Leave your details on our contact page, and one of our ERP experts will be in touch with you shortly.