Keeping up with Technology

Author: Paul Henriques in: Implementations
Management

July 8, 2022

Keeping up with Technology

You are actively looking to modernize your shop. You can see the strains of productivity and you have read about how many digital tools and software apps are out there to help you ease some of these growing pains. Things like:

  • Manufacturing Execution Software, or MES, is software that is used to schedule and report on your shop lines via work orders, nests, etc.
  • Enterprise Resource Planning, or ERP, is software that is used to plan the required resources for your enterprise
  • Capacity Planning, or RCCP and DCP, are tools used to help you plan how much capacity you will need in the long term (RCCP) and short term (DCP)
  • Quality Management Software, or QMS, is used to manage your product quality, both when receiving material from a supplier or vendor and before shipping to your customers
  • Warehouse and Inventory Management Systems, or WMS/WIMS, is software that is used to locate and manage raw material, parts, assemblies, packing material, spare parts, and everything else you need to keep your manufactory
  • Shipping and Packing Software is software that shows upcoming orders, auto-generates the documents for the shipment, and shows your warehouse team how to pack orders to minimize transit losses
  • HR Systems are software packages used by your HR department and can also be used to show you what staff have been trained for what position
  • Customer Relations Management, or CRM, is software that is used to record and report on interactions between your team and your customers
  • Financials Systems are systems used by your accounting/finance department to record and report on all your financial information, like banks, invoices, receipts, etc.
  • Vendor Relation Management and Purchasing, or VRM, is software used to track and interact with your vendors/suppliers and allows you to send and receive invoices, receipts, purchase orders, and over vendor-related material
  • Maintenance Management systems are used to show your maintenance team current and upcoming maintenance requests and can help you keep up to date with your preventive maintenance and keep a record of spare supplies on hand. More advanced tools can communicate with your maintenance systems and report on parts of the tool that are not working within recommended specifications and may require maintenance before the standard maintenance window
  • Process Audit Management systems notify you of upcoming process audits that you must complete and keep track of audit results
  • Engineering systems give your engineering department a centralized database of easy-to-access records of all your engineering documents

Your problem is that you can’t seem to get the funding you need to implement a project. With so many software apps to get, it is starting to seem expensive to purchase and expensive to implement.

You heard about a competitor getting a nice check from your government to modernize and automate but by the time you got a consultant on staff to look into getting you something similar “the submission period is closed”. You’ve talked to banks but the business loans they are suggesting have exorbitant interest rates that you are not willing to pay. Plus, both the government grants and the private banks require a mountain of forms and data for you to qualify. Data you don’t know how to get.

Helping with Technology

The good news here is that governments across the world have been made aware of the difficulties that the manufacturing sector is facing. And with renewed interest in bolstering national manufacturing output as a percentage of GDP (for example, the EU that wants to see member states generate 20% of the national GDP from manufacturing by 2035), those same governments are offering consultants, grants, and zero percent interest loans to help you get the tools you need and will pay you to implement them quickly and effectively.

This fiscal boost can help pay for some or all of your implementation costs, which for most technology is one of the biggest barriers to entry.

Finding Help for Technology

In previous decades, the only way to find out about and acquire government provided funds was through costly consultants and the slow gears of bureaucracy, with questionable forms and forgetful public agents.

Another benefit of the digital revolution has been those governments that have been proactive in digitizing their information. Through them, you can read about available proposals. Then, fill out a form and you are ready to start the process that nets you the funds you need to ensure you are improving your firm and, by extension, your local and national economy.

A quick google search can net you a large number of actionable links for your country and region. For example:

United States

Canada

Most of the information that you need for these grant requests should be within your current financial data. There are also many companies that can help you find the fiscal and process data the grants need to ensure your application is successful and your funding is received.

Agree/ Disagree? Tell us what you think below!

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