Fighting manufacturing challenges with Rootstock Cloud ERP

The manufacturing sector is going through peculiar times. Even while it has begun to show signs of recovery post-pandemic, it continues to struggle with challenges on multiple fronts. On the one hand, the global shortage of raw materials persists; on the other hand, supply chain disruptions are far from over. As if that’s not enough, the sector is also dealing with a lack of skilled workforce and increased pressure to transition towards sustainable operations.

But look closely, and you’ll realize that the troubles of manufacturing companies aren’t restricted to external factors alone. Most manufacturing companies face a plethora of issues internally as well. Here are some of the most significant challenges that impact the productivity and efficiency of manufacturing companies:

• Data inaccuracy that leads to ineffective decision-making: Manufacturers often rely on manual documents and spreadsheets. This leads to compromised quality of information, ineffective communication, and misinformed decisions.
• Inefficiency in scheduling and capacity planning: Inaccurate shopfloor capacity estimates cause complex and uncertain scheduling processes, thus delaying order fulfillment even further.
• Incorrect costing: Lack of real-time data on timesheets and inventory can lead to incorrect product costing.
• Poor inventory management: Poor inventory management causes a supply-demand gap and raw material misplacement.

While manufacturers cannot control external factors, they can (and must) streamline their processes to build a resilient enterprise that flourishes even amid disruptions. Technology can be a game-changer here since it can help companies optimize their operations. This is probably why the manufacturing sector is seeing a global shift toward cloud manufacturing. Companies are migrating to cloud ERP systems to manage and optimize their entire product lifecycle, from concept and R&D to maintenance.

What is Cloud ERP?

A cloud ERP is an enterprise software that is hosted on the cloud instead of internal servers. It enables manufacturers to streamline their production cycle and links all the business processes from procurement to sales, finance to HR, and marketing to production through a central database. By eliminating silos, a cloud ERP enhances operational efficiency and improves workflow and data quality. No wonder it leads to more effective decision-making.

A Cloud ERP is an effective tool for manufacturers because it:

• Provides a single, integrated solution instead of multiple hardware and software resources
• Gives real-time information on functions like procurement and inventory
•  Reduces overhead and maintenance costs
• Offers scalability, flexibility, and accessibility across devices
• Upgrades the technology without requiring substantial upfront investment

While several Cloud ERPs are available in the market, Rootstock is most suited for manufacturing companies, primarily if your organization uses the Salesforce CRM, Salesforce manufacturing Cloud or any other Salesforce offerings.

The Rootstock Cloud ERP comes with sales order management, inventory management, production, finance, and marketing modules. Besides being equipped with Salesforce’s Sales Agreement and Account-based forecasting features, Rootstock ERP enables a 360-degree  view of customers, vendors, and products allowing manufacturers to create more precise production and supply chain plans. It also helps with insights that can be used to make the product better and more relevant for the customers.

Integrated ERP and CRM capabilities allow real-time interaction between sales, finance, operations, marketing, and other functions. Manufacturing companies can leverage this to understand demand, optimize profitability, and upgrade their offerings to meet rapidly changing customer expectations.

What makes Rootstock your choice of Cloud ERP built on Salesforce Cloud?

Rootstock has various manufacturing company modules, such as sales orders, purchasing, inventory, engineering, shop floor management, project control, and MRP. Together, these modules enable collaboration between internal and external stakeholders. They streamline production, inventory management, sales order management, and other processes. This helps to cut down the error rate, bridge the supply-demand gap, and enhance shopfloor efficiency and productivity.

Let’s look at some of these modules and how they enable efficient operation for a manufacturing organization:

Inventory management: Rootstock’s inventory management module helps manufacturers achieve smooth production, minimal inventory costs, and timely order fulfillment. It offers real-time visibility on the movement of supply & demand and updates the inventory with attributes such as location, serial number, and lot. This further allows organizations to make data-driven decisions, minimizing inventory costs. Rootstock also maintains transaction history records, customizable cycle counts, and category analysis while managing standard, actual, and FIFO costs.

Supply chain management: By connecting CRM and ERP, the supply chain module synchronizes supply and demand to meet customer delivery expectations as accurately as possible. It automates the entire supply chain management process and tracks inventory along the entire chain through IoT applications such as barcodes and sensors. It also maintains a supplier database and facilitates collaboration with the suppliers to pre-empt any discrepancies. A thorough analysis of historical data also helps create accurate demand forecasts.

Production planning: By automating the production process, Rootstock’s production module avoids bottlenecks and disruptions in the manufacturing process. It helps manufacturers maintain the highest quality levels through compliance, as it can be easily integrated with multiple compliance apps on the Salesforce platform. Another significant advantage of this module is that Rootstock uses AI and advanced analytics to study patterns and trends in the production process for decision-making insights.

Sales order management: The sales order module uses automation to simplify sales order processing and converts quotes and opportunities in Salesforce to Rootstock sales orders. Rootstock uses multiple vital attributes to define products that set up iterative and error-free sales order management processes.

Apart from these modules, Rootstock ERP has many other attributes that make it a preferred choice for manufacturers. Which other attributes? Take a look:

Compatible with multiple production processes from MTS, MTO to MTE: While some manufacturers follow forecast-driven manufacturing without specific sales orders, others carry out production-only manufacturing after receiving a definite sales order. Rootstock Cloud ERP can work smoothly with multiple production patterns:

• Make to Stock (MTS)
• Assemble to Order (ATO)
• Make to Order (MTO)
• Engineer to Order (ETO)
• Process and discrete manufacturing

Seamless Integration with QMS and other applications: Agility is a prerequisite in this age of disruptions. Rootstock offers improved flexibility, accessibility, and easy integration support, which is essential for dynamic businesses. It comes with customization capabilities to meet specific customer demands. It is compatible and easy to integrate with new-age technologies, applications, servers, and systems.

It works seamlessly with numerous applications available on the Salesforce App Exchange and provides easy integration outside the Salesforce environment as well. Here are some integrations available with Rootstock Cloud ERP:

• Compliance Quest: A complete EQMS software available on Salesforce to meet all the quality and compliance requirements
•  Workday: For Finance and Human Resources
• Avalara: Sales tax and compliance automation service
• Zenkraft: Common Shipping and business needs
• Propel: For Product life cycle management (PLM)
• Revenova: Transportation Management