Today, manufacturers face high competition, driven by the needs of the ever-more demanding customer. Consumers want their products to be smart, to be connected and to be personalized, and manufacturers are scrambling to work as efficiently as possible to deliver quality goods at the lowest cost possible.

Most manufacturing companies understand the value of information management, and turn to various IT solutions with the hope of finding the magic cure that would influence their overall efficiency.  Huge corporations implement expensive platforms, while small ones do not.

“Due to lack of experience and financial resources, small manufacturing companies are forced to face the “technology zoo”: choosing one of the multiple choices they find online,” says Aurimas Bakas, board member of DocLogix, a European information and business process management company. “This often means onboarding small, non-adaptive products with poor functionality (some CRM, sometime reporting tool, some ERP system, some risk management system, etc.),” adds Mr. Bakas.

These choices usually do not solve the problem of efficiency, because they are limited, stand-alone applications with no relation to each other.

The secret for optimizing the production chain lies in information-related processes. All the tasks that are separate events of the manufacturing process are very important for the overall efficiency: how work hours are being reported, how tasks are being assigned, how contracts, invoices, and production documentation is being prepared and delivered, and so on. The unity of these processes can make or break a company. For example, if a company used a time reporting tool instead of manually filling the papers, work hour accounting could be decreased from three hours to one.

Small to mid-sized manufacturing companies should seek to utilize one single system that would connect all its departments, control and record all processes and encourage cooperation.

For example, DocLogix offers a wide list of ready-to-use solutions, dedicated to performing easy, traceable and automated management of a manufacturing company. DocLogix platform serves as a bridge between management and production teams, enabling all information about the manufacturing and business processes to be available when it is needed and where it is needed. All employees, starting from CEO, down to production managers and sales people are benefiting from increased accountability and traceability, reduced paper workload, and overall performance.

DocLogix is unique because of these advantages:

1. Wide list of solutions that cover the entire company. The platform comes with a wide list of manufacturing-related solutions, such as time tracking and reporting, machine maintenance management, contract management, HR management, procurement management, claims management, risk and incidents management and many others.

2. Personalization and customization. DocLogix comes with a set of user-friendly inbuilt tools for customization and personalization – that’s how even small and midsized companies can have an affordable and personalized manufacturing management platform. DocLogix blurs the line between a customer and vendor, empowering the customer to be the creator of his product.

The companies that will be able to catch up with the new consumer priorities will be the ones that thrive. Small and midsized manufacturing companies have the best chance to adjust to the new reality, and utilizing smart tools is the fastest road to produce smart personalized products.