Prepare Your Manufacturing Business for a Recession

Although not officially announced yet, it seems likely that our economy will be going into a recession (2 consecutive quarters of negative GDP). For advanced manufacturing companies, this could mean reduced orders and revenue due to less products being purchased, so customers need less invetory. If you haven’t done so yet, now is the time to start preparing for the uncertainty of the near future by making your business more efficient and productive. Here’s why this can help.

Making your company more efficient and productive has many direct benefits including faster processing times and better customer service. The indirect benefits, though, are what can really help your business get through a recession.

By simplifying your processes and daily operations, you will decrease the time employees spend on these tasks, allowing them to use that time elsewhere. You may even be able to reduce the number of employees doing these tasks, allowing them to work on profitable projects such as sales or marketing. Before you can decrease expenses, you need to find areas in your processes and operations that have the opportunity to be more efficient.

At The Refinery, we have years of experience working with many different companies in the manufacturing industry. One common issue we find is the need for system integration.

As you probably know, manufacturing companies tend to use multiple systems for various tasks such as inventory, purchasing, pricing, product information, etc. Oftentimes, these systems run by themselves without ever communicating with one another. In these situations, employees have to manually update each system, go back and forth between programs, and be aware of any discrepancies between the data.

The solution to this problem is system integration. This basically means developing communication between systems so that everything is automated and all relevant information is shown in one place. There are a few different ways to accomplish this depending on the scenario. For a more in-depth look at system integration, read our recent post The 4 Types of System Integration.

Here are a few examples of integration for advanced manufacturing companies:

1. Optimizing and updating inventory.
2. Updating product information and specs in one place rather than having to do it in each system.
3. Real-time data and sales forecasts based on the latest information.
4. Updating customer information in one place so everything is current across all systems.
5. Creating a dashboard with all the necessary information, pulled in from the various systems being used.

Recessions can be very difficult for manufacturing companies, but there are some things that can be done in preparation. Streamlining operations by integrating multiple systems together can reduce expenses and employee effort, which in turn can reduce the impact a recession can have.

We have worked with many different manufacturing companies using multiple systems and have had great success in customizing solutions to make their operations more efficient and productive. If you’re wondering if system integration is the right move for your business, give us a call. We’ll help analyze your situation and come up with the optimal solution.