When understanding the general public sentiment related to your company, almost nothing compares to your average customer’s experience from discovery to purchase to support. There will be specific factors that may lead to churn, such as a negative experience when calling customer support or receiving a product that just doesn’t meet expectations. 

You’ve seen the comments about supply chain visibility, and maybe you’ve encountered some technology providers who want you to know all about how their solution is the best for it. But first, you’ll need to know what it is and whether it’s useful for your business.

You’ve likely heard the forecasts  of an impending recession. Some people might even have warned you of the possibility of a depression. We’re in no place to make a judgment on whether or not these predictions will come true, but we do know what you can do to prepare, just in case.

You’ll sometimes hear inventory referred to as “crystallized capacity,” the idea being that when you have limited capacity, building inventory is a solution that helps you meet customer demand. The typical example is a seasonal business, like a manufacturer of skiing equipment. 

Automotive manufacturing is not immune to the challenges facing the rest of the supply chain. Volatility is common in manufacturing and certain variables, such as geopolitical uncertainty, are often out of the circle of control. However, two of the most common struggles which can be affected are labor and the supply chain. If you sample a group of manufacturers, those two topics will come up over and over.

Flexibility and agility are two words that are often used interchangeably, but there are important distinctions between them. Knowing the difference can guide how and when you focus your time and energy to strengthen your business.

The next evolution of manufacturing will be true “lot size one” and will respond in real time to customer demands. Real-time agile manufacturing will require new approaches to production, including how labor capacity is managed, how production occurs (i.e. additive manufacturing, asset-light manufacturing), and how the supply chain is arranged (i.e. decentralized manufacturing).

Data maturity is a skill which, just like any other skill, requires an initial foundation of knowledge and practice with incremental advancement until excellence is achieved.

In this blog, we’ll provide a solution to a common problem across all industries: insufficient standardization, leading to quality issues and inconsistent throughput rates.

Kaizen is a term you’ll hear thrown out casually in conversation with many manufacturing leaders. If you’ve been using context clues to get by this far, you’ve likely figured out that it has something to do with always improving. So what exactly is kaizen, and why are people talking about it?