3 Reasons You Shouldn’t Use Your Manufacturing ERP Vendor to Go Mobile

Addressing operations challenges with technology Catavolt launched a survey titled “How Leading Manufacturers are Accelerating Operational Excellence” in September 2014, to gain insight on how manufacturing organizations are working to continuously improve their operations, workflows and business processes.

We collected 111 responses from manufacturing professionals in various disciplines on trends and technology that are driving operational excellence. Increased competition in the market, meeting customer expectations, rapidly changing plant floor conditions, and the need to increase revenue, is pushing manufacturing organizations across all industries towards more efficient operational processes.

Manufacturing organizations are increasing operational excellence investments in 2015

Manufacturing organizations are constantly facing challenges to accelerate decision making and efficiency needed to produce quality products, goods and services. Many of these manufacturers are implementing ERP systems for their organization to manage work flows, materials, scheduling, and quality control.

New technology, like mobility, is allowing manufacturing teams to have a flexible and customized system that helps organizations do their jobs more efficiently, and at a lower cost.

22% of manufacturing organizations invest in ERP software to better integrate systems across multiple facilities (Panorama Consulting, 2014).

Why is using ERP difficult for deploying mobility in manufacturing?

Manufacturers rely on ERP systems as a common interface that supports all applications LQ�WKHLU�RUJDQL]DWLRQ�WR�PDQDJH�ZRUN�RUGHUV��ELOOV�RI�PDWHULDOV��VFKHGXOLQJ��ZRUN�ćRZ�PDQ-agement, and quality control. But, what if the organization wants to customize their inter-face to deploy mobility?

Manufacturing organizations are spending large chunks of their budget implementing traditional ERP systems that promise to support changing business processes. Often, these systems do not match specific organizational needs, and IT must invest in consulting services to fix bugs and customize programs that help teams provide a competitive advantage. There are now new approaches to software development, implementation, and project management to drive efficiency and flexibility among manufacturing teams.

Enterprise resource planning: a waterfall approach

Operations and IT work

together to analyze business

needs

Operations approves

design and IT works with

vendors to develop a solution

IT designs a solution to

present to operations with

best possible outcomes

IT deploys the ERP system

to the organization

The ideal waterfall approach: At face value, this ERP development process appears to be fool-proof. What often happens even when the process is followed exactly, is that the manufacturing teams do not completely grasp an understanding of what the ERP does or how it works.

By the time an ERP is launched internally months later, business processes may have changed, new equipment and software has been implemented, teams have been realigned, and the system no longer meets the need of the teams.

With a waterfall approach that is similar to traditional ERPs, mak-ing mobile apps is cumbersome, costly, and doesn’t involve the user throughout the development process. For manufacturing teams to use mobile apps, they must have a superior user experience.

The user perspective: taking the agile approach

Identify Customer Value

(Responsiveness)

Pursue Perfection(Continuous

Improvement)

Map the Value Stream

(Optimize Processes)

Create Flow(Track Metrics)

Establish Pull(Optimize Materials

and Labor)

By taking an agile approach to implement mobility, manufactur-ing organizations are able to gain insight and information in to account as a project progresses. With this information, manu-IDFWXULQJ�WHDPV�FDQ�VLJQLĆFDQWO\�LPSURYH�TXDOLW\�RI�WKHLU� GDWDEDVH�DQG�HQVXUH�PD[LPXP�HIĆFLHQF\��

With the right mobile platform, manufacturing teams can easily PHDVXUH�GDWD�DQG�PDNH�FKDQJHV�WR�SURFHVVHV�WR�GULYH�FRQWLQ-XRXV�LPSURYHPHQW��:LWK�DQ�DJLOH�DSSURDFK��RUJDQL]DWLRQV�FDQ�work together to ensure that any new information is incorpo-rated into the mobility platform.

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Reason #1: ERPs are not best of breed for mobility

A best of breed approach to mobility should optimize an organi-zation’s environment without burdening their resources. Best of breed mobile approaches provide manufacturing organizations with deployment in days, preventing unnecessary costs, with an easy to use interface and implementation process.

&KRRVLQJ�DQ�(53�IRU�\RXU�FRPSDQ\�FDQ�EH�D�ORQJ�DQG�GLIĆFXOW�SUR-cess, especially when implementing mobile options for your team WKDW�DOORZ�PRUH�ćH[LELOLW\�DQG�FROODERUDWLRQ��

Best of breed mobile platforms have focused on mobility from the beginning. For ERP vendors, mobility is an upselling oppor-tunity that can come with hidden costs.

Reason #2: ERPs maintain data silos

Data silos are described as a system that is unable to operate with any other system. These “silos” typically occur because of how an organization’s ERP system is constructed. So, why break down these data silos?

When data is being stored in multiple systems including ERPs, it is harder to determine its integrity as teams compare and synchronize it across multiple systems. By investing in platforms that break down data silos in manufacturing, organizations can foster communica-WLRQ��FROODERUDWLRQ��DQG�XQLĆFLDWLRQ�RI�JRDOV�DQG�YLVLRQV�among departments.

Reason #3: ERPs are expensive to maintain

4% of IT executives believe their ERP system

creates a competitive advantage in their

manufacturing organization.

(CIO Insights, 2015).

Only

Implementing ERP to deploy mobility internally, often brings high or hidden FRVWV��DQG�PLVDOLJQHG�LQFHQWLYHV��,7�GHSDUWPHQWV�DUH�IRUFHG�WR�GHDO�ZLWK�GLIĆFXOW�DXWRPDWLRQ�SURFHVVHV��PLVPDWFKHG�FXVWRPL]DWLRQ��DQG�YHQGRU�FRQWUDFWV�WKDW�carry penalties and risks.

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The rapid mobile app development approach

&DWDYROW�SURYLGHV�PDQXIDFWXULQJ�RUJDQL]DWLRQV�ZLWK�HDV\�WR�FRQĆJXUH��SUH�EXLOW�DSSV�WKDW�DUH�VHFXUH��PDQDJHDEOH�DQG�SHUVRQDOL]HG�IRU�HDFK�user.

With the diversity of devices, network connectivity, and other mobile-specific considerations, traditional ERP practices to develop desktop applications do not work for mobility. Additionally, trying to virtualize ERP software on mobile devices will result in a poor user experience. Catavolt’s business model focuses solely on deploying mobile apps, not using traditional ERP methods

that are designed for desktop applications.

Catavolt’s codeless mobile app platform enables business and IT analysts, not programmers, to create apps quickly that are relevant to their team’s specific jobs. Developing mobile apps with Catavolt

requires very little development or maintenance effort from IT.

Why do manufacturing organizations need real-time data?

With Catavolt, your manufacturing organization can easily modernize business processes and drive

informed decision making from relevant, real-time data accessed on mobile devices

How mobile apps drive flexibility and collaboration in manufacturing

Mobile apps for manufacturing provide real-time data that helps organizations drive flexibility and collaboration among teams.

Manufacturing organizations that have relied on ERP systems to GHSOR\�PRELOLW\�RIWHQ�ĆQG�WKDW�WKHLU�GDWD�KDV�EHHQ�VLORHG�LQ�PXOWLSOH�LQIRUPDWLRQ�V\VWHPV��DQG�KDYH�GLIĆFXOW\�FRPPXQLFDWLQJ�DQG�JHWWLQJ�WKH�MRE�GRQH�HIĆFLHQWO\��:LWK�WKH�ULJKW�WHFKQRORJ\�WR�GHSOR\�PRELOLW\��manufacturers can decrease the amount of time spent addressing costly errors, and more time producing quality products and competing LQ�D�JOREDO�PDUNHW��

Visit our resource center and learn more about how mobility drives operational excellence

www.catavolt.com

• Addressing the challenge of integrating back-end

systems in manufacturing organizations

• How manufacturing organizations are using technology

like mobility to accelerate their operational excellence

initiatives

Click here to visit the Manufacturing IT Resource Center for videos and additional resources