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C-Suite Leadership News - November 18, 2015

Posted by Cindy McGowan on Nov 24, 2015 10:24:00 AM

Manufacturing C-Suite Leadership News
 

Volume I, Issue 6
November 18, 2015
Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.
Albert Einstein
 
Building a Global Manufacturing Business
California CEO magazine recently suggested that as more and more American business owners consider expanding into the growing global marketplace, there are many things to consider. With demand for U.S. manufactured goods increasing steadily around the world, particularly in China and Europe, there has also been an increase in the number of American businesses looking to take advantage of the opportunity to satisfy that demand. 
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Topics: Ultriva Sponsored News, C Suite Leadership

C-Suite Leadership News - October 19, 2015

Posted by Cindy McGowan on Oct 27, 2015 1:32:00 PM

Manufacturing C-Suite Leadership News
 

Volume I, Issue 5
October 19, 2015
Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.
Albert Einstein
 
CIO Magazine Reports Rapid Growth of Cloud-based Enterprise Software for Manufacturing
CIO Magazine recently reported that the cloud is rapidly becoming the new standard for enterprise software. Organizations are moving the most important business processes beyond their own four walls en masse. The simplest way to quantify this is in terms of business software startups: essentially 100% of new enterprise technology companies are delivering solutions in the cloud.
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Topics: Ultriva Sponsored News, C Suite Leadership

C-Suite Leadership News - September 21, 2015

Posted by Cindy McGowan on Sep 22, 2015 12:59:00 PM

Manufacturing C-Suite Leadership News
 

Volume I, Issue 4
September 21, 2015
Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.
Albert Einstein
  Leadership in The Manufacturing Revolution

Mike DiLeo shared in Manufacturing.net that it is an exciting time to be in manufacturing, but that means change in the industry - and lots of it. The existing and emerging technologies that are creating a new Industrial Revolution in the manufacturing sector are also creating new demands for leadership in change management skills, metrics, and more.
 
As tech innovation is driving business decision-makers to be more effective in a rapidly changing and competitive environment, they are seeking more professional certifications to support the ability to excel. While the need for professional certifications like Six Sigma is true in a wide range of industries - health care and retail among them - it's in the traditional "home" of Six Sigma, the manufacturing space, that investment in leadership skills and analytic Six Sigma framework are likely to pay off.
 
Consider some of the developments identified by Industry Week as the top five manufacturing trends to shape the 2015 market. At the top of the list is the so-called "SMAC Stack," the next-generation IT approach designed to streamline social, mobile, analytics, and cloud into a single architecture that delivers what Ed Anderson, a research VP at Gartner, has called a digital critical mass. SMAC Stack changes the manufacturing game, but these customer-focused trends force what Michael Kotelec at Verizon views as "cultural change within a historically conservative if it ain't broke don't fix it' industry." 
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Topics: Ultriva Sponsored News, C Suite Leadership

C-Suite Leadership News - August 27, 2015

Posted by Cindy McGowan on Sep 3, 2015 10:53:00 AM

Manufacturing C-Suite Leadership News
 

Volume I, Issue 3
August 27, 2015
Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.
Albert Einstein

 

Industrial Manufacturing M&A Activity on a Steady Climb in Q2 2015 According to PwC US
Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the industrial manufacturing industry maintained a strong pace in the second quarter of 2015, with a robust pipeline of deals coming to market in the second half, according to Assembling Value, a quarterly analysis of global deal activity in the industrial manufacturing industry by PwC US. The number of transactions recorded in the second quarter (worth more than $50 million), increased to 66, compared to 59 deals in the previous quarter and 62 deals in the second quarter of 2014. With $28.2 billion in announced deals, second quarter totals exceeded the $20.5 billion raised in the first quarter this year but were well below the near-record $60.4 billion set in the same quarter last year. In addition, the second quarter easily exceeded the five-year median of $19.9 billion.
 
U.S. acquirers remain interested in M&A as an opportunity to source new technologies, investing in advances in automation, efficiency, machine communication, and next generation robotics or acquiring niche capabilities in these areas. According to PwC, strategic activity in the second quarter, accounting for 64 percent of deal activity, covered a diverse range of end markets including filtration, industrial air and gas, electrical components, and auto parts and equipment. Industrial manufacturers remain focused on portfolio enhancement and strategic alignment, keeping an eye on economies of scale and operating efficiencies in core businesses. The need for 100% supply chain visibility is greater due to M&A activity. Manufacturers need to know what is received from suppliers. They must be able to track such shipments through the entire set of processes, from billing through customer shipment, including order location, the status of a customer's order, acceptance, and plan for ultimate shipment. This level of total visibility requires access to real-time replenishment data across a manufacturer's entire supply chain. Learn more:  bit.ly/1DVqBoT.  
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Topics: Ultriva Sponsored News, C Suite Leadership

C-Suite Leadership News - August 3, 2015

Posted by Cindy McGowan on Aug 3, 2015 10:00:00 AM

Manufacturing C-Suite Leadership News
 

Volume I, Issue 2
August 3, 2015
Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.
Albert Einstein

CAPA at the C-Level  

Michael Rapaport insists that  CAPA is (still) a very time-consuming process. He is correct that not too long ago CAPA - and all quality management processes for that matter - were wholly based upon manual, paper-driven processes. The fact that CAPA touches so many different aspects, from engineering to production and beyond can have a profound impact on the deliverables that are typically associated with its successful implementation, such as engineering change orders, control plans and rework orders, and often in ways that are far from apparent and only reveal themselves upon implementation and validation testing.

CAPA, consisting of two separate but very related processes, are not one dimensional, flat quality processes. Rappaport puts it succinctly, plant-level CAPA can have a very different scope and context than enterprise-level CAPA, which may not necessarily share the same point of view. Consider the example of an in-line production process deviating from specification. On the shop floor, this issue would need immediate attention, which a C-suite executives would not know about one minor issue at one particular plant on one particular day.

C-level executives see one of the main challenges with CAPA as defining scope and context within a large company. For a global manufacturer, one plant site may literally speak a different language than another plant site, but this comparison is also applicable internally, too. One department may use a different vernacular than another department, which can introduce unnecessary complexity into CAPA. Likewise, it is not uncommon to find different software tools in place within the same company to manage the same quality process, which only makes it more difficult to achieve consistent CAPA internally when scope and context remain amorphous and undefined.

Some CAPA software are simply modules for enterprise resource planning systems or product life cycle management (PLM) solutions; some are stand-alone solutions that require their own IT resources. In the absence of a concerted strategy to streamline CAPA, it is easy to choose a software that may not be the best solution based on your needs. Often, CAPA software is used as an extension of PLM because many manufacturers have invested very heavily in these systems, so it makes sense to manage CAPA in this manner. However, it is not necessarily need to manage CAPA through PLM; there are many, many other possible deployments.  Rapaport correctly identifies that the accurate and timely flow of information is the key - and with the integration abilities of specialized software systems today, there are many choices.

Certainly, the challenges with CAPA are numerous, but these are the most common pain points. The key lesson you can take away is that CAPA does not have to be a lengthy, manual quality process if you define scope, context and deploy the right software. Learn more.  

 

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Topics: Ultriva Sponsored News, C Suite Leadership

Manufacturing C-Suite Leadership News - July 6, 2015

Posted by Cindy McGowan on Jul 15, 2015 10:57:00 AM

Manufacturing C-Suite Leadership News
 

Volume I, Issue 1
July 6, 2015
Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.
Albert Einstein

Manufacturing and Distribution CEOs Find Hidden Opportunities in Supply Chain  

Greg Brady authored a feature for Texas CEO. According to Brady, traditionally, when a CEO paid attention to their supply chain, it meant something had gone wrong. Strategically, compared to other areas of the business, the supply chain was a relative backwater. The conventional wisdom held that so long as businesses kept pace with its industry's averages, the company was doing fine. Although companies were only too eager to participate in arms races with competitors that saw sky-high R&D, marketing, and legal spends, when it came to the supply chain, CEOs were content to march lock-stop with the most bitter rivals.This is no longer the case. If the supply chain was once about the status quo, now it is about disruption. The continued march of globalization, as well as diverse technology trends such as automation, Big Data, and cloud computing have all brought the supply chain to the CEO's attention. Responding to the end-consumer seems obvious to a retailer, but manufacturers and logistics providers are realizing to succeed in the coming years they need to respond more quickly to actual end-consumer demands. This means the whole chain, from the retailer to the raw material supplier, all are working together to give the end-consumer what they want. Companies taking this approach are experiencing dramatic increases in consumer sell-through revenue. 

 

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Topics: Ultriva Sponsored News, C Suite Leadership

Very simply, Forecasting doesn’t work. Ultriva helps manufacturers move away from forecasts to a demand-driven manufacturing and Supply Chain environment.   

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