Advanced manufacturing goes global

Multi-national manufacturers can go for global management but local execution of procurement, production and logistics using enterprise software developer QAD’s extension to its GXE (Global Enterprise Edition) range and a new production s scheduler suite. It’s all about ‘advanced manufacturing’, meaning efficient, low cost production from world-wide supply chains and production and distribution facilities – very much the lean manufacturing and supply visibility message. Updates address sales and distribution, communication of inventory data across the supply chain, warehouse management functionality and streamlined production. In particular, the Production Scheduler is a web-based module that the firm says increases scheduling efficiency by providing near real-time insight into key production information on a single screen. Visual alerts enable a scheduler to quickly determine and act on potential item availability and capacity problems. That’s particularly useful as constantly changing demand requirements and shorter demand runs force increasingly complex product mixes. Visibility of the production environment – and information that impacts it – can make a huge difference. With QAD MFG/PRO eB2.1, Lean Manufacturing, JIT Sequencing, Customer Self Service and Supply Visualization on top of the above, that’s quite a lot of capability from one software house.