Meeting the Demands of Dynamic Markets
Most furniture companies now face a more demanding market than they did in the past. In order to keep up with these demands, you must have a system that you can rely on to meet all your business needs.
In an effort to adapt to new market conditions, many furniture companies have been streamlining their operations in recent years to focus on core products and have reengineered their organizations to cut overhead costs.
However, many of these same companies continue to use aging in-house systems to handle their internal business functions. While these systems met their needs in the past, the current market demands the integration of business and manufacturing information; a requirement that tailored in-house systems are most often unable to meet.
The "Business Process" Approach
Dynamic markets and the need for increased customer focus demand new types of systems and organizational structures. The new paradigms are "do more with less" and "focus on customer needs at all levels of the organization". As the market's demands continue to increase, many companies find themselves unable to keep up.
The solution is to integrate enterprise-wide business and manufacturing information to provide consistent, critical customer information to newly-empowered employees. Such systems also enable a "business process" approach that eliminates inefficiencies and provides better quality information for planning and capital investment decisions.
Increased Availability of Information
Unhindered information availability throughout the flow from customer order entry to production planning, manufacturing and order fulfillment significantly reduces inefficiencies and increases profitability. Order status and quality information can also be made available to customers without compromising the integrity of the IT system.
A system can be established that enables customers to both send orders and receive confirmations electronically. The same concept can be used for incoming raw materials at the other end of the supply chain.
By taking advantage of electronic information transfer and gaining access to high-quality business information (planning, costs, order status, and so on) from across their organizations, companies in the furniture industry have a golden opportunity to boost profitability and attain higher customer satisfaction levels.
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