7 Signs Your OEM/ODM Business Needs Manufacturing PLM

During the negotiation process with customers, product information is often altered more than once, whether it’s changes in price or material, trims or workmanship. Every time a piece of information is changed, the BOM also needs to be edited to reflect the updates. Do you struggle to find the time to do this during the crazy sampling season? Then do you kick yourself when you realize you shipped your customer’s products using the wrong BOM for those products- meaning you lost money on the order?

Updating information in various places wastes precious time. Without one central hub to store all information, you can rarely feel confident which source of data is most up-to-date. Nobody has time or can afford the costs of guessing games. When you’re juggling so much information and dealing with various teams and suppliers, it’s essential that everyone is on the same page.

Imagine having only one place to update the BOM – Manufacturing PLM provides just that! 

Are you turning away work because you don’t have the production capacity to make more products and you don’t have the budget to hire additional people?

Without a solid workflow in place, it can be hard to determine the production capacity of your existing team. With Manufacturing PLM, you’re given the ability to oversee and adjust workflows based on Standard Minute Value (SMV) so that you can say ‘yes’ to more customer requests and you’ll realize that you don’t need to bring on a whole new team to manage new or amended product delivery schedules

Adding more products to your database is quick and easy with Manufacturing PLM as you can copy existing information already stored in the system to create tech packs and BOMs. With an accurate overview of the whole supply chain, less time is spent trying to work out where you need to make cutbacks. For example, it may be clear looking at PLM that you need to reduce your material yield, as all the information is in front of you.  Teams can free up more time to focus on value added tasks like adding more products to your workflow.

Taking on more business requires more free hours, not more employees – and luckily a good Manufacturing PLM offers just that!

Most modern manufacturers now have a design support team to co-create with customers. Being able to provide design intelligence to your customer will soon be the norm so if your business is lacking this service, you could lose customers and also the ability to make more money!

On top of this, the end-consumer is demanding products faster and many also want products that are sustainable – but at no extra cost. It’s even more critical than ever to invest time in researching and developing materials and products so you can satisfy these expectations. Is this a priority but in reality it feels like an impossible challenge because nobody has time to think about the future when you’re struggling to keep up with things like day- to-day tasks and avoiding late shipment costs?

Manufacturing PLM is proven to free up time so that it can be better spent on things like testing new materials, lowering costs, improving quality, adding more SKUs and delivering samples even faster which will be much more valuable to your success than teams wasting time dealing with frustrations from scattered data.

Do you find yourself in yet another meeting with no time left to do your actual work? Do you finish meetings and often think that there must be a quicker way to make decisions? When there’s no clear process for making decisions or place for teams to find up-to-date information, meetings are usually the only way to get everyone together to collaborate and make important decisions.

Manufacturing PLM eliminates the need for so many meetings because when information is updated, everyone can see the changes. That includes your internal teams where you might have sales offices in New York, Hong Kong, London and your factory in Dongguan, Myanmar and Cambodia and your external partners such as your fabric supplier, trim suppliers- the list goes on and on. PLM has no geographical limits!

Imagine the scenario, a customer has asked for a jacket to have a zip instead of buttons. Instead of having a meeting to discuss how to accomplish this and trying to work out a time that works for all time zones to discuss questions like, ‘Do you need a different supplier?’, ‘Does it mean a change in timelines for the completed product?’, Manufacturing PLM is updated in real time, gives you various options and the ability to make a quick decision that is shared by all.

Sound like a better way to spend your work day?

The industry continually shifts because of geo-political events, customer requirements and market forces and everyone must fluidly adjust in order to stay competitive. For manufacturers, reacting quickly while minimizing risk can feel impossible especially if all your processes don’t link together. Does a small update mean updating information in 5 different places and hoping that you didn’t miss one?

Adapting workflows and updating information is simple with  Manufacturing  PLM and it can link with other systems within your business such as ERP and CAD – the best thing is, you only need to update it in one place.

PLM can develop your enterprise knowledge base: linking your basic style with your pattern library, operation bulletin and the SMV value. It also helps you to develop your customer knowledge base including their grading rules and tech pack format so that everything is combined into one workflow and you can respond to any enquiry faster.

Your customers trust you to deliver the product they have asked for on time, on budget and to their quality standards. Are you constantly worried about missing these deadlines yet find yourself reassuring customers that you’ll make it even when you’re not sure yourself? Working like this puts huge pressure and stress on teams and when you miss a deadline the repercussions are rarely good when you’ve been giving a customer false promises.

If you wish there was a way to demonstrate more trust and transparency with your customers and suppliers that will also help you keep close track of deadlines, then you are ready for Manufacturing PLM.

Most companies recognize very quickly that PLM will be an incredible asset to their business and offers a whole host of benefits. It gives you complete visibility of workflows, linking everything together so that deadlines aren’t missed and clients are satisfied every time. PLM helps to save time and effort by tracking, reporting and capturing information across suppliers, partners and customers in one place and gives manufacturers the agility to adapt to changes quickly.