Material Requirements Planning in the Cloud: Driving Performance

In the manufacturing space, as in most industries, your success is greatly dependent upon the efficiency of your operation. If you don’t have the right resources or processes in place, you can easily waste time or money to reach your goal. As a result, you often invest in certain solutions that ensure you get the job done right every time. One such solution that is a must-have within the manufacturing environment is material requirements planning.

The strategic goals you determine for performance are driven through the material requirements planning solutions that you have in place. While this technology platform has been around for years; with the advancement of cloud-based computing solutions, many companies are turning to driving performance through cloud-based material requirements planning. NetSuite is one powerful player that developed solutions for this space to help you focus on streamlining your processes, while keeping your software investments at a minimum.

One solution offered by NetSuite for your material requirements planning is the NetSuite Manufacturing Edition. The company promotes this solution as being designed to enhance the agility and visibility of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). You can implement this suite to improve your global business operations as it offers multi-site planning and management, in addition to material requirements planning, engineering change, production management, shop control and more.

By moving the materials requirement planning solution to the “cloud”, you can leverage the full capabilities of the NetSuite solution, while also reducing your cost and increasing productivity. You will also be able to focus in on solutions that help to drive efficiency, implementing the features and functions that cater specifically to your environment. And, as NetSuite has a global reach, the company focuses on integration requirements to ensure their solutions will work within your environment.

When examining solutions to fit into your material requirements planning strategy; beware of the hype that surrounds many cloud-based products. Not all products are developed to work in every industry. Just because a material requirements planning solution promises to work in any manufacturing environment, don’t expect that it will meet all of your needs directly out of the box or upon implementation. Niche products may work great for your colleague, but it doesn’t mean it is right for your processes.

NetSuite has a strong reputation in the global market for delivering comprehensive solutions that work within all environments. The difference is that NetSuite has the expertise on staff to understand your needs and design the solution to meet your specific needs. As a result, you can swiftly move your key operations to the cloud, maintaining the automation you need, while also reducing your overall implementation cost because you are taking advantage of the cloud and not investing in additional hardware or data center space.

When moving to a cloud-based material requirements planning solution, whether it is based in the cloud or not – first determine your needs before deciding on a vendor. If your internal culture is not ready to move to the cloud, this may not be the right direction for you. If you want to eliminate the need for data centers and virtual private networks to drive your production floor, considering a cloud-based solution and a provider like NetSuite may be the right choice. Tread lightly in the process to maximize the value of your decision.