Best Manufacturing Software Systems
By Marty Michael on Jun 16, 2010
One of the things we want to do with this blog is it to help our readers find relevant information that can help them to improve their business. One good source I have found is a site called Software Advice. MES, Supply Chain, OEE, or Quality management are all covered on this site.
Software Advice recently held a roundtable discussion on the state of the manufacturing software industry. Teaming up with four industry experts, they reported on the leading trends taking shape in 2010. In general, they find this year to be more active than 2009. Buyer interest and purchase activity is up across the industry, from large sophisticated companies to smaller companies implementing an enterprise system for the first time.
They attributed the increased activity to two main reasons. First, the 10-year anniversary of purchases made as a result of the Year 2000 (Y2K) date problem; and many companies are restarting buying processes that were deferred in 2009.
Interestingly, they find most purchase activity taking place among chemical, food and consumer packaged goods (CPGs) manufacturers, with aerospace, semiconductor and automotive manufacturers not far behind. Increased ERP software adoption among CPGs is fuelled by "the need to manage global supply chains, distribution networks and targets acquired through mergers and acquisitions activity," observes Jonathan Gross. While aerospace, semiconductor and automotive companies are "more active with upgrades, replacements and add-ons."
The report continues on with a discussion of activity in the software as a service (SaaS) market, how vendors are adjusting prices to compensate for the economy, how offshoring influences spending and whether manufacturers are implementing integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems or best-of-breed applications.
To read the full report, visit 2010 Manufacturing Software State of the Industry Roundtable
Martin Michael
SMART Manufacturing Practices
About the Author
Martin is the Principal for Enterprise Manufacturing Software Solutions at Avanceon. Martin leads the company vision to provide innovative technology solutions to industrial and manufacturing companies, to improve their ability to respond in today’s rapidly changing market place. Martin is a long time business leader in the area of on-line production systems; cloud computing, manufacturing execution systems, and track and trace solutions. Martin works directly with clients to improve their productivity, speed to production, and manufacturing quality in response to direct client feedback.
More blogs by Martin Michael >