A Better Way to Manage Rapidly-Changing Cost Data
June 3, 2024
Manufacturing is a world of never-ending change. More4apps helps you keep up.
In manufacturing, change is the one thing you can count on. Goals are a moving target. Factors outside your control push you to adapt and evolve operations.
For example, inflation has driven major cost fluctuations in recent years. At the same time, events ranging from political instability to labor shortages to extreme weather have caused supply chain disruptions. These disruptions have increased shipping costs and impacted prices on all sorts of materials.
In this blog, we look at how manufacturers are responding to rising costs and inflation and the importance of data accuracy for executing those changes. We also share how More4apps can help you update your Oracle ERP system with reliable data at the speed your manufacturing processes require.
Reacting to Rising Manufacturing Costs and Inflation
As inflation has hit record highs, including the largest increase in 40 years, so have the costs of manufacturing inputs and raw materials. For manufacturers, raising prices in response can only go so far. If prices go too high, companies start losing business.
As a result, many manufacturers are exploring alternative strategies to manage costs and inflation. Some are reducing and consolidating product offerings, suppliers, and business portfolios. Others are finding ways to make their supply chain, inventory costing and management, and operating strategies more efficient.
The Critical Role of Clean, Accurate ERP Data in Manufacturing
Data accuracy is crucial to supporting, evaluating, and reporting on new manufacturing decisions and plans. Yet business changes can involve mass amounts of data. Keeping your ERP data current amid all this change will be a struggle if you lack the right tools and processes. Mistakes are bound to happen if you’re always rushing to keep up.
Whether data is wrong due to human error or simply outdated, having inaccurate information in your ERP system can impede business decision-making and agility. Take inventory costing data, as an example, it already changes frequently. If your company is now switching items or suppliers, you’ll have even more edits to make.
When a cost is entered incorrectly or has changed since the standard costs were last modified, inventory dollars will be recorded incorrectly. Furthermore, if you don’t know your costs, how can you ensure you earn a profit? This incorrect data could have huge effects on your income statement.
Problems with Data Volume and Existing Tools
Successfully executing new business strategies relies on being nimble. However, the data involved in requests like discontinuing SKUs or consolidating suppliers can be immense. Manually updating that much information is not practical. It would be slow, time-consuming, and almost certainly lead to errors.
Some manufacturers use Oracle tools like DataLoad and Web ADI, or custom-built applications. These solutions are inefficient and clunky and often require IT help, which further slows down processes.
Oracle Web ADI vs. More4apps: Comparing Data Loading Alternatives for E-Business Suite
Get a Handle on Fast-Moving Data with More4apps
You have a better option for maintaining your ERP data: the More4apps E-Business Suite (EBS) Toolbox. More4apps software is ideal for fast-paced industries like manufacturing.
This single-spreadsheet solution lets you instantly download, update, and import large amounts of data all from within Microsoft Excel. With More4apps, users can upload data 90% faster than alternative solutions and entirely replace offline spreadsheets as a source of information.
Since each More4apps product leverages Excel, the tools are incredibly easy to use and learn. More4apps solutions also boost accuracy with advanced pre-validation, which automatically pinpoints errors in the spreadsheet, with clear, actionable error messages before data is uploaded into your ERP system.
A Full Range of Oracle Manufacturing Solutions
More4apps software combines flexibility with a comprehensive feature set for working with all sorts of manufacturing data in mass. You can adjust sourcing information, purchase order dates, and supplier data in minutes when business plans change. Managing SKUs, BOM structures, routings, and WIP jobs is equally simple.
With More4apps supply chain solutions, you’ll have everything needed to manage inventory item costs and build “what-if” scenarios easily. You can generate reports on near-term impacts by implementing cost changes as temporary cost types. At the same time, keep system costs in sync with real-time fluctuations in material, labor, and resource costs.
Whether your changes impact procurement, production, pricing, or sales order creation, you can be more agile, efficient, and accurate with More4apps.
Manufacturers who use the More4apps EBS Toolbox can:
- React quickly to customer and market demands.
- Streamline product creation and maintenance.
- Keep item, BOM, and routing information accurate.
- Review material costs in detail and find areas to save money.
- Keep inventory replenishment and planning locations up-to-date.
- Perform material transactions between locations, projects, and expense accounts.
- Simplify work in process (WIP), discrete job creation, and maintenance operations with on-the-fly changes.
- Consolidate bill of materials (BOM) structure information from multiple systems.
- Align and maintain all planning and buyer details.
Learn more about More4apps’s manufacturing solutions today! You can also explore case studies to see how companies like Toyota Boshoku USA and Avery Dennison use More4apps’ suite of tools to increase efficiency and quality.
Additional Resources
Comparison of Oracle Web ADI vs. More4apps EBS Toolbox
Oracle Web ADI vs. More4apps: Comparing Data Loading Alternatives for E-Business Suite
Case Study
Toyota Boshoku USA Reduces Bill of Materials Process from Weeks to Days
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