Content tagged with "enterprise-resource-planning"

Results: 10

Article

April 1, 2010

ERP and the cloud Figure 1 Businesses may need to climb over some hurdles when looking to invest in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, manufacturing execution system (MES, or shop floor control) software, or related packages. They may need to hire IT personnel or add servers. For some, this... Read more...

Article

August 1, 2009

Saying 'yes' when others can't These days a shop manager may look at material handling towers, offloading stations, and other automated setups and think the technology might be good for healthier times, but not today. What good is automation when even manual machines aren't running full-out even for one shift, let alone... Read more...

Article

November 25, 2008

Getting it there yesterday Figure 1 A combination laser-punch machine speeds products through Greenheck Fan’s shop floor. In the building business, timing is everything. All may not go exactly as planned, and measurements for this duct hole or that wall may be slightly off the blueprint callouts. The... Read more...

Article

August 26, 2008

Cycling through a business transition Maybe it's the fact Lori calls her sister "Trace," short for Traci. Maybe it's because they complete each other's sentences. Or that they live a block apart. Or that they had their first children (both girls) within two weeks of each other. Or that they both first went into finance: Lori was... Read more...

Article

May 13, 2008

Streamlined scheduling suits fabricator Estes has invested in a bank of automated laser cutting , folding, and bending centers, including this panel bending workcell from Salvagnini. Ryan Estes sees the value of a paperless shop: no job packets, no drawings, clear revision control with the latest and greatest for each job in one... Read more...

Article

April 15, 2008

Automotive and industrial: A tale of two businesses Every morning as John Atanasoski gets out of his car and walks over a parking lot to his office, he looks at an adjacent swath of land. There Atanasoski's employer, Microflex Inc., this year will start building a 45,000-square-foot facility to house Microflex Automotive, its 2-year-old OEM... Read more...

Article

March 11, 2008

Work flow goes virtual Mid-West Metal Products Engineer Archie Adamisin views a customer's CAD file, which will follow the job through production. One look at Mid-West Metal Products' shop presents a gleaming example of metal fabrication automation. In the company's Sheet Metal Fabrication Division, material... Read more...

Article

December 11, 2007

Maximizing your shop floor automation investment When manufacturing companies invest hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in shop floor automation, they need to have their machines run at full or near-full capacity to achieve a quick return on investment. In long-run production environments or in job shops, justifying the purchase... Read more...

Article

June 12, 2007

Laser cutting with less labor and less hassle In February 2007 a four-man precision metal fabricating shop—with the help of two temporary employees—laser-cut more than 500 jobs comprising 73,863 metal pieces and weighing more than 315,000 pounds. That's good news for Chris Hollenback, president of Integrated Manufacturing... Read more...

Article

December 12, 2006

Taking software integration to new heights Historically, the majority of a manufacturer's costs have been labor. In fact, when Henry Ford introduced the moving assembly line in 1913, labor accounted for an estimated 80 percent of total costs. One of Ford's key beliefs was that labor costs could be greatly reduced by eliminating... Read more...

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