Service maintenance and ERP – your questions answered

The manufacturing and distribution industries are high-functioning and competitive, which means that businesses need to do what they can to optimise efficiency. Enterprise resource planning, ERP systems can help you keep on top of your service maintenance, thereby, improving profitability diminishing repair costs, and allowing you to make more strategic decisions when it comes to aftersales maintenance services.

As an on-premise and cloud ERP solution for manufacturing companies, Winman is here to demonstrate how ERP software can service both yours and your customer’s equipment.

Greater productivity

There is nothing worse than having to stop manufacturing due to equipment failure or other unexpected maintenance problems. Some machines that require regular maintenance include milling, boring, and scanning machines. Recalibrating these machines after a catastrophic breakdown or problem can be a time-consuming process, especially if you’re unsure as to how the issue originated.

Manufacturing ERP software ensures you engage in preventative and predictive maintenance by notifying you as to when equipment and machinery checks are required. As you’re able to configure limits at which service advice is triggered before it gets to a point where you have to stop everything and investigate. Being notified in advance can lead to greater productivity in the workplace as there’s less chance of unexpected delays when you’re in the middle of a production run or order process. Manufacturing teams can monitor the production statuses in real-time, thereby spotting any potential issues before they arise.

Real-time data

Digital information systems built into ERP software allow you to record data relating to all aspects of your business operations in real-time. This means that your teams can also gain insight into their own performance, sales, profits and losses, labour requirements, maintenance jobs, and customer enquiries and action activities in a timely fashion.

In terms of service maintenance, this makes it easier for teams to plan and schedule machine maintenance jobs while staying on top of other operations. This ensures that maintenance activities – such as changing blades or cutters on machinery – don’t take a backseat to other priorities.

What’s more, ERP systems allow manufacturing businesses to track your machine’s downtime and how long it takes to complete certain maintenance jobs. Employees can book on to maintenance tasks to record the work time taken so that managers have a better idea of resource capacities. This helps you make more informed decisions and deliver accurate estimates when allocating time to certain jobs during your production planning.

Aftersales maintenance

Aftersales maintenance is a common feature in several industries. For instance, automotive or industrial manufacturers must – as well as monitoring and recalibrating their own machines – deal with part recalls and replacements or carry out other warranty services.

If you provide contracted maintenance service to customers, ERP software can help you plan maintenance timetables, schedule repairs, and honour other aspects of the customer’s agreements with you. Efficient contract management leads to greater customer satisfaction and ensures your service records remain up to date. Teams can also use your business management ERP software to review invoices, time logs, and contract data.

Better documentation

An ERP system allows you have total control of customer data and billing. It automates several processes, such as the scheduling, recording, and documenting of both customer enquiries, service calls, and internal stock inventories, processes and manufacturing. This information is available in one centralised location, making it more accessible and visible to all employees.

ERP workflow configurability also allows you to automate various stages of your processes, from recording the date and time of execution of work orders, customer names, sales numbers and orders, plus product quantities on to your invoices, as well as the internal owners, or those involved, with the projects at hand. The system assigns each order a routing code so teams can track progress as it moves through your operations.

ERP systems are a great installation, offering you an opportunity to digitalise process and review, streamline or optimise existing activities across your business – particularly for those in process manufacturing or food manufacturing, who are looking for a good production software. WinMan offers both an on-premise and cloud ERP solution, plus the ability to add-on the WinMan Go application to speed up shop floor data capture and can be fully integrated with incumbent third party systems if you’re a manufacturer wanting to implement lean manufacturing processes.