7 Ways To Improve Your Manufacturing Firm’s Efficiency With Technology
Your efficiency is the baseline of your firm’s success. Don’t let delays and wasted resources affect your bottom line — follow these seven tech-based best practices to boost your efficiency.
The efficiency of your manufacturing firm’s processes is perhaps its most important quality. The more you and your staff can accomplish, in the best timeline, and with the least possible wasted resources, the better your profit margins will be.
But how can you promote greater efficiency at your manufacturing firm? By investing in the right technology…
Transform Your Firm For Greater Efficiency
Using new technologies to improve efficiency, profitability and more is all a part of digital transformation.
Digital transformation is the initiative to use technology for better business outcomes. It’s one of the biggest buzz phrases going around the business community right now, and for good reason. Both in the manufacturing industry and otherwise, business leaders are realizing just how powerful new technology can be.
Don’t make the mistake of assuming this is all just hype. According to Reports and Data, the global digital transformation market was already worth $261.94 billion in 2018. By 2026, it is estimated to be worth as much as $1051.12 billion.
That’s why you need to start embracing digital transformation now — by implementing the right technologies, you can vastly improve your firm’s efficiency.
7 Ways To Improve Your Manufacturing Firm’s Efficiency
Invest In The Right Technology: Despite being so crucial to a firm’s efficiency, one challenge that is often overlooked is IT. Specifically, the ongoing maintenance of software lifecycles. If your legacy software is working so poorly that it stops you and your crew from working, then it’s time to replace it. The downtime caused by old technology isn’t worth the money you’re saving by hanging on to it. The right firm management software can equip you and your crew with a range of convenient capabilities, allowing you to automate billing, invoicing, and other tedious time-consuming tasks. You can also integrate your software with a cloud platform to gain even more benefits and reduce capital expenditures in your IT budget.
Track And Improve Performance: Incentivize your crew by tracking their performance and rewarding improvement under any crucial key performance indicators (KPIs). No matter how much you invest in new tools and technology, it won’t amount to much if your staff has started coasting — give them a reason to continue improving their performance.
Encourage Mobility: Implement Mobile Device Management and Bring Your Own Device policies that allow employees to use their own devices in combination with the firms’ – be sure to equally prioritize the convenience of access with security. And don’t limit yourself to desktops, laptops, and phones; there’s more out there for you to take advantage of. Have you considered what the Internet of Things and wearable devices can do for workplace efficiency? Now’s the time to get on board — up to 20.4 billion IoT devices were brought online in the past year.
Harness The Cloud: Increase collaboration and simplify management by hosting your data and applications through the cloud — again, prioritizing security in line with the access given to staff members. It shouldn’t have to be said at this point, but just in case you’re still in the past — get rid of your on-site hardware.
Before the cloud, onsite servers were a must for any business that wanted to succeed, but no longer. Today, you don’t need to purchase, install and maintain onsite servers- with the cloud, you outsource it all to a data center instead.
By choosing a cloud solution instead of conventional infrastructure, you will enjoy all the benefits of an up-to-date and optimized IT infrastructure, without having to pay more than your monthly service fee.
Use Data To Your Advantage: With the right information, each choice you make can have attainable and expected positive results for your business; without that information, you may as well be gambling with the future of your firm.
Business intelligence is the collection and analysis of data collected such as department productivity, overall growth, sales trends, and customer behavior. Applications of this data can range from something as simple as Spreadsheets for the organization, and storage of data to Online Analytical Processing or Reporting and Querying software. Each has a specific use and offers various benefits to your small business.
Reporting and querying software extracts, sorts, summarizes, and presents selected data. This data could range from sale reports of specific items to a measurement of the efficiency of marketing plans.
Use The Internet Of Things: More and more users are buying Internet of Things (IoT) devices for their homes and workplaces, and even devices that they carry with them, that require a connection to the Internet; and typically, that connections provided via wireless, such as WiFi or Bluetooth connection. The ever-expanding network of IoT devices offers a range of convenient benefits to consumers, and offers exciting applications in the business world as well, from office space management to agriculture weather monitoring. A popular new arena for technology, it’s estimated that there will be 64 billion IoT devices worldwide by 2025. IoT is a natural evolution of the Internet, consisting of a myriad of new “smart” and “connected” products and technologies for the commercial, consumer, and government environments.
Harness Artificial Intelligence: Artificial Intelligence is a technology that allows computers to correctly make decisions that would otherwise be left up to users.
According to an MIT-Boston Consulting Group survey, a vast majority (more than 80%) of surveyed executives report that they believe Artificial Intelligence offers a competitive advantage, and nearly the same amount believe it will increase their company’s productivity.
Over the past few years, developments and leaps in the furthering of machine learning have led to the integration of Artificial Intelligence into products you already use or future versions of products you use.
The two primary popular forms this has taken in the consumer and business worlds to date include:
Machine-learning, which exponentially improves the frequency with which it makes correct decisions by accumulating data and repeating processes (i.e., it “learns” by rote)
Speech-based technology that can understand spoken word in multiple languages, allowing it to execute tasks by verbal input (e.g. Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant)
Looks For Expert Assistance Harnessing New Technologies?
Every firm encounters challenges with its efficiency. The reality is that the battle is never really won, and you can always do better. The important thing is to make sure you’re always improving.
These are just a few of the potential benefits of embracing new technology. However, if your IT company can’t or won’t help you attain them, then you need to find a company that will — a company like Happier IT.
In the end, modernizing your firm doesn’t have to be a massive restructuring of the way you do business. Step by step you can affect these changes, and we can help.
Consult with Happier IT to discover how to harness new technologies and boost your efficiency.