Fabrication companies face an onslaught of challenges. Offshoring, recruitment, commodity fluctuation, and more—but one of the most pressing issues? Many are falling behind technologically. From marketing to management, the phrase “digital technology revolution” is a top priority for fabricators.
Why Digital Technology is Right for Fabricators
There is good reason for this: the increased presence of automation and the ease of digital information exchange between hardware and software systems has launched a new era for organizations like yours, but few have embraced it. Dubbed “Industry 4.0,” the promise of automation and connectivity makes for an exciting time, but only for those who can overcome skepticism, according to the Fabricator.
While manufacturers have gotten on the bandwagon, fabricators face a bigger challenge. Often, without the same standardized processes or repetitive activities, it’s harder to find the right product and many have stuck with what works for years or decades – especially when it comes to ERP.
The last time you bought software, there may have been a couple options delivering some of the features that fit your business, but times have changed.
How Technology Simplifies Your Business and Lets You Grow
Technology has empowered fabricators to do more – the right information in the right hands at the right time, making it easier than ever to run a business.
Take Control of Purchasing Materials and Quoting Customers
Prices fluctuate rapidly, and imperative to success is your ability to have prices, current inventory, customer requests, and labor costs at your fingertips.
In the traditional shop, each of these tasks required a call to a supplier, a call to the warehouse, a look through your email, machine scheduling, and labor scheduling spreadsheets. By the time you compiled the information to send an accurate quote, a customer could just as easily have left.
In the optimized digital job shop, however, information is extracted from a job order, minimizing manual input of information. This could result in the complete elimination of non-value-added rework.
Faster Invoices
After completing the work, sending an invoice creates its own challenges for the traditional fabricator. Imagine getting the right approvals for an invoice, bringing everything together, checking it, printing the invoice, mailing it – only to find out something was wrong. Papers get lost, typos happen, and if something goes wrong, the entire process has to be rechecked. The process of sending an invoice not only costs you money, you lose potential revenue every day that an invoice isn’t in your customers’ hands.
For digitalized fabricators, the invoice and collection process is easy: the accounting department automatically receives digital notifications from the shipping and receiving department when parts are delivered to customers. They have visibility of production orders and their status and can instantly see things such as unshipped order lines. As the system is integrated, employees do not have to re-enter data, which significantly reduces the potential for error.
Bring Your People Closer
Today’s business – whether fabrication, manufacturing, or professional services – is built on collaboration. People need to know what’s going on and when it’s happening, and you can’t waste away typing emails or digging through spreadsheets. Like cash and materials, information needs to flow through your organization.
In the connected fabrication business, order data, CAD data and more are available to the right people at the right place at the right time, greatly reducing the amount of time figuring out part geometry, material and machine availability, and more.
Today’s Digitized Fabricator is Empowered by Cloud ERP
At Crestwood, we understand the challenges that fabrication businesses face, and for decades have helped companies like yours to work with solutions that save you time, increase visibility, and allow your business to thrive.
Paired with their functionality for Manufacturing and Project Management, the recent release of Construction Edition allowed Acumatica Cloud ERP to deliver the necessary functionality for the fabrication industry, adding necessary functionality like subcontracts, retainage, prevailing wages and more.
As a top Acumatica Partner, we have the in-house resources that can make Acumatica work for you. Crestwood was awarded a position in the first-year Acumatica President’s Club for 2018 and voted Acumatica Partner of the Year for two years in a row. Get to know more about Acumatica for Fabrication Businesses and contact us for more information.
