Connected manufacturing operations can enhance productivity and customer satisfaction. For example, data from your customer call centre can be used to improve operations on the factory floor, such as predicting which trends may impact production. And data from your factory floor can be stored in one place, making it easier for your customer-facing teams to retrieve the information they need.
Those are just some of the benefits of digital transformation in manufacturing. Next comes a common concern and that’s centred around cost and resource. Microsoft focuses on addressing these challenges, with flexible solutions that unify and digitise finance and operations.
Here’s how:
From finance to production to sales, Microsoft Dynamics 365 can collect data from remote and disparate sources, integrate into multiple systems and provide visualisations of data. This enables users to gain meaningful and actionable insights.
Better visibility and data access also serves to facilitate collaborative projects across the entire organisation. In other words, employees can work better together, regardless of their department or location, resulting in faster, more informed decisions.
By removing the guess work, manufacturers can swiftly speed up time-to-market and overtake competitors. And in the hard-fought battle to become the manufacturer of choice, this is vital as speed and agility are absolutely everything.
Leveraging the ‘connected factory’ capabilities within Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides additional opportunity to differentiate against competitors.
Equipped with real-time insights, manufacturers can remotely monitor and resolve any machine issues, while understanding usage and performance to optimise machine lifecycle. Combined, this gives firms the capability to ensure 24-hour continuous uptime and minimise the chance of disruptions to production.
And who doesn’t need that?
The stakes are higher than they have ever been before. Customers are calling for more innovative products and services and if your business can’t keep up, your competitors will race ahead. Thankfully, innovating doesn’t need to be based on guesswork. IoT (Internet of Things) is a global technology trend that’s growing rapidly in popularity and it doesn’t look like it’s going away any time soon.
IoT offers manufacturers like yourself the chance to provide further services, like proactive maintenance and remote monitoring in addition to standard support options.
Delays and ad-hoc issue resolution can quickly become a thing of the past.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 connects the front and back office with one single end-to-end platform. This allows users to manage every aspect of operations, at a pace and scale that’s right for your business.
For example, bridging the divide between CRM and ERP boosts productivity because your team no longer needs to switch between various systems and devices to find the information they need. It’s in one centralised system.
That information includes business intelligence and rich analytics - so you can now make more informed decisions.
Thanks to its ability to centralise information, Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides a 360-degree view of the customer. This is key when it comes to product innovation - you’ll need to know and understand your customers’ needs as well as the products you’re creating.
With Dynamics 365, you can match customer drivers to new product development, ensuring that any investment you make towards innovation is worthwhile.
In a highly competitive market, trust and loyalty is everything.
The faster you can solve a customer problem, the better - that’s obvious. But do you know what’s even better? Solving customer problems or potential shortages before they have the chance to actually happen (or your customer noticing). Now, that can significantly enhance your reputation.
Data is what you need to achieve it.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 can help, thanks to predictive analytics. This feature allows you to configure differentiated offerings based on each customer’s unique buying patterns, demonstrating how intuitive your business is and how well you know your individual customers.
And the more you can show this to your customers, the more you’ll impress them and boost trust and loyalty.
So, you have a solution that centralises your core business systems and key data. Great! Is it also available/compatible with other devices other than desktop and laptop? Your field service engineers will need that flexibility if they’re to benefit from all of the advantages we discussed earlier too.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is one such solution, compatible with various devices. Equipped with mobile tools, your remote technicians can now have valuable data at their fingertips and work efficiently on-the-go. They can collaborate with other experts, update files and troubleshoot issues from anywhere at any time.
With operations that are more joined up and better connected, manufacturers can realise significant benefits. Connecting both physical and digital systems not only offers increased efficiencies and better visibility; seamless integration also provides more flexibility – as well as lower costs.
In addition, more and more firms are moving towards a smart factory model to stay competitive and keep pace with Industry 4.0. Want to see why a fellow manufacturer chose to implement Dynamics 365 and how this decision impacted them?