Often top of the list is software, and for many manufacturing and field service companies that means addressing for once and for all the topic of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software.  The goal here is to streamline communications and the flow of data from one department to another.  So you have the field sales team inputting opportunities on a mobile device on the fly.  That opportunity becomes a quotation at a later date.  This is then progressed in the back office system when the sales order is received, which in turn becomes a works order for production triggering purchase orders for supply of materials.  Goods are received, issued to production and the works order is started and tracked through its operations.  When completed, the finished product is quality checked, despatched and an automatically generated invoice can be electronically transmitted to the customer.  All of these are seamless, automatic transactions processed in real time.

The idea is to eliminate manual processing (e.g. paper dockets), remove duplication (all those spreadsheets) and ensure people have the information they need to do their jobs in a timely and efficient manner (workflow).

For more information on selecting ERP software, why not check out our ERP Selection White Paper.