5 Effective Ways How ERPNext helps manufacturers?

ERPNext helps manufacturers create a seamless production process. With ERPNext, you can easily create a database with all of your manufacturing equipment and employees so that it is accessible to everyone on the production floor.

This helps you make sure everyone is working together and you can improve your manufacturing process by making sure everyone has access to the latest information.

In this blog, we will embark on a journey to explore five remarkable ways in which ERPNext for Manufacturers revolutionizes manufacturing, paving the path toward operational excellence.

Whether you’re a seasoned industry player or a budding manufacturer, these insights will shed light on how ERPNext for manufacturers can be a game-changer for your production processes.

Following are the ways in which ERPNext helps manufacturers.

1. Reducing Costs and Margins

The first step for manufacturers to reduce or optimize costs is knowing where the costs are incurred.

ERPNext has several built-in cost-tracking modules that allow you to track the costs of various components during manufacturing.

1. Inventory Module

With the ERPNext Inventory Module, you can store the cost price of goods in the Valuation Rate of each item. This way, the BOM will reflect the detailed breakup and accurate price of the raw materials being used.

2. Workstation Module

As the production begins, workstation costs like fuel, electricity, rent, etc. can be captured in the Workstation form. This is reflected in the BOM which helps you track production costs minutely.

3. HR module

Worker wages can be seen in salary slips in the HR Module.

4. Timesheets

It can be created and tracked to calculate wages on an hourly basis for accurate personnel costs for each stage of production.

The data thus available in real-time within ERPNext makes cost tracking very easy.

Once costs are identified, engineers and designers can get a better understanding of where costs can be mitigated by optimizing designs, using off-the-shelf components and materials, using a common design strategy, etc. to reduce manufacturing costs.

It all starts with accurate measurement and tracking, and that is where ERPNext improves efficiency and increases profitability.

2. Standardize Processes

ERPNext helps manufacturers to standardize manufacturing processes which is essential to have consistent outcomes irrespective of variables like variations in raw materials, workers, or time of day.

ERPNext comes built with a Quality module that allows you to set processes through industry-best practices. The Quality module has the following features that allow you to define your processes.

1. Quality Meetings

The Quality Meetings module allows you to document quality meeting agendas. These meetings are generally done to identify issues that concern quality in the production line.

2. Quality Actions

Specific processes can be documented using the Quality Actions module by listing Problem-Resolution pairs that lay operating procedures down clearly and centrally for your team to follow.

3. Quality Procedures

Having step-by-step documented procedures helps the team follow a standard operating procedure. The Quality Procedures module allows you to document procedures and make them available centrally.

4. Education module

Education module to have well-defined training curriculums for your team to ensure they are well-versed with standardized processes.

3. Helps Track Machine Downtime and Maintain Machines

Keeping track of machine downtime is crucial to production planning.

The downtime entry module within ERPNext allows workers to track downtime accurately, thus, preventing waste of time.
ERPNext helps manufacturers by also allowing you to make notes of reasons for downtime, which may help identify issues in advance and mitigate downtimes in the future.
The maintenance visit module within ERPNext lets you set regular maintenance visits
The maintenance schedule module in ERPNext allows for setting the frequency at which maintenance needs to be done. ERPNext will give you a list of planned maintenance visits.
Notifications can be combined with maintenance schedules which helps to stay up on your machine maintenance.

4. Get the Optimal Suppliers

The supplier portal in ERPNext allows you to get all supplier quotes in one place.

1. Request for Quotations

You can create a Request for Quotation (RFQ) which can be sent to potential suppliers.

2. Supplier Quotations

Suppliers can respond to the RFQ through the Supplier Quotation form which is automatically linked to an RFQ, so all basic RFQ references are linked to the quotation form.

3. Supplier Scorecard

ERPNext helps manufacturers with an elaborate supplier scoring workflow that allows you to define scoring criteria and set up a scoring matrix with formulae to score submitted quotes.

With ERPNext you can have all the supplier quotes in one place, easily compare quotations based on quality, price, and delivery dates, and other customized criteria thus ensuring that you always pick the right vendor for the job.

5. Bring Everyone on the Same Page

ERPNext gives access to data in one place and in real time. This promotes transparency and credibility while leaving no room for assumptions or wrong information that may lead to poor decisions or tension between departments.

Verbal-based instructions may lead to miscommunication and delayed execution.

1. @ mention within ERPNext

The mention feature within ERPNext allows you to use @ symbols followed by the name to tag people in conversations below a form. They’ll get email notifications and always stay in the loop whether you’re moving machines or delaying production.

2. Emails within ERPNext

It can be directly sent via ERPNext to multiple employees and CCed to others for larger production decisions. This will create an email thread that can be followed from the production plan/work order itself.

3. Assign within ERPNext

The assign feature within ERPnext allows assigning jobs to specific employees directly on their work order or job card. They will get notified about it directly.

In manufacturing, where efficiency is constantly sought yet difficult to find, enterprise resource planning (ERP) can be a game-changer. ERP allows for unprecedented visibility, coordination, and management across the disparate processes involved in manufacturing, ultimately resulting in greater operational efficiency, and in turn better productivity.