In the current business environment of sustained financial constraints it makes sense for companies to look to cut their costs, more and more manufacturing organisations are finding that the only sensible way to continue is to outsource their production to the developing world and more often than not to China.
China is a great place to do business at low cost, local wages are low, there’s a huge and still relatively untapped workforce to take advantage of and running costs are also lower than they would be in the West. However without some careful consideration the savings can be lost or worse it can be more expensive than producing the goods at home.
Quality is the key component of success or failure in outsourcing manufacturing. When quality control is neglected the costs can mount up quickly and in some cases can even be fatal to the operation and the company running it.
Here are five reasons to make sure that you quality control all your products:
Avoid recalls – the number one reason to ensure that the products you deliver are all exactly as they should be is to avoid the expense of a recall. Chinese products in particular are often recalled because of defects which are hazardous to human health, toys, food, electrical items, components, the list is nearly endless. It is often said that no publicity is bad publicity, the exception is when you have to run a national advertising campaign apologising for the shoddy products that your customers have purchased.
Health & Safety of your customers – some faulty products actually kill their users or consumers. Toys which are badly made often pose a choking hazard to children, electrical products can catch fire and destroy lives and property. No company wants to be remembered for the death or maiming of their customer base.
Brand damage – the impact of poor quality can be far reaching, particularly when the recall is newsworthy. If you consider the case of Toyota, once considered to be among the safest of manufacturers, this last year has destroyed that reputation through two recalls of faulty vehicles.
Save time – it’s not just recalls that can affect your business, when you receive your shipment and find that the products don’t meet your specifications it can mean having to send the goods back to the port of origin, have them reworked and then reshipped. If you deal in seasonal goods, this can make the product redundant by the time the process is complete and even if you don’t it can mean empty shelves and failure to fulfil customer requirements.
Save money – quality control is not an expensive process; great quality will always save you money in the long run. It maintains your reputation, keeps your customers Introducing Lean To A Company happy, guarantees that your products are always well regarded, and delivers the maximum return on investment by enabling you to manage your inventory successfully.
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Nine Reasons Why You Need a Custom BIOS
Many times a minor tweak to your system BIOS can greatly enhance the industrial computer user experience. The BIOS customization can be relatively simple such as adding Industrial Engineering And Management Quora a customer’s company logo to the system start-up screen or as complex as re-ordering a system’s boot priority to match a customer’s unique system start-up requirements.
Either way, you want to ensure that the system integrator you work with understands both your system sub-component configuration needs as well as how the BIOS of the SBC or motherboard can be optimized to get the most our of your industrial computer system investment.A� What follows is a list of the nine most common BIOS customizations requested by users of industrial computers.
Change Standard Defaults – From changing processor operational parameters to device interface types, this is our most common custom BIOS request and one of the simplest to implement. The payback can be enormous in terms of simplifying the end user system deployment process.
Embed Company Logo – Another common request is to add the customer’s company logo to the BIOS start-up screen, ideal for creating a branded solution.
Increase Device Bus Capacity – For customers with a lot of I/O cards in their system, this custom BIOS change can be a lifesaver in terms of preventing unnecessary hardware expenditures.
Match Specific IRQs – Sometimes certain system components must reside in precise system locations within memory. Changing Carton Crates Manufacturing the IRQ to match the needs of the system sub-component can save hours of trouble shooting and work around headaches.
Custom Retry Logic – Sometimes a specific combination of I/O cards requires changes in the BIOS retry logic. A BIOS change like this can prevent system lock ups during data traffic bursts along the system’s I/O communication interface bus.
Adding booting delays – Legacy peripheral I/O cards sometimes have problems booting in a system with the latest multi-core processors. This custom BIOS change enables the cards to boot in the correct sequence and save the costs of re-engineering in a new card that may not meet all of the customer’s long established system requirements.
Change Reset Pulses – Adding extra reset pulses within the BIOS sometimes enables a customer to prevent having to change an I/O card model type due to system initialization issues.
Modifying Memory or I/O Resource Requests – Frankly I/O cards do weird things when requesting system memory or I/O resources. Oftentimes the requests make no sense and cause system misbehavior that can be eliminated by making a BIOS change that ignores unnecessary resource requests.
Changing Boot Priority – Some customer systems require a specific boot priority in the event that the bootable device configuration is changed. This is a simple way to meet these requirements without incurring undue re-engineering expenses.
In the world of industrial computing, BIOS modifications are quite common for users of single board computers and embedded motherboards.A� In some cases, such changes are required to ensure proper system operation, yet many users are …
Top 5 Reasons Why ERP Implementations Fail
When listening to fears and concerns about ERP solutions, implementation is usually on the top of most lists. Yes, it can be daunting, but it is the cornerstone of the overall project. So why do implementations fail? Below is our countdown of the most common ERP implementation errors and how to avoid them.
5) Don’t “Train the Trainer”
Proper implementation of an ERP solution takes a full-court press from your company. Many times companies simply underestimate what it takes to get it done. The “train the trainer” approach to cut costs can get you in trouble. Having only one or two key people learn the system, so they can train other employees is a recipe for disaster. All users should have an opportunity to work directly with the vendor’s implementation team. Meet with your vendor to get a clear understanding of what it takes to fully implement the system so you can reap the benefits throughout your organization.
Also, avoid the temptation to train your personnel by department; such as having customer service train from 8:00 to noon on Monday and then have purchasing take over after lunch. These sessions usually just devolve into a demo rather than interactive training. But worse, trainees have no sense of how the software integrates nor how they are affected by events upstream and how they impact those who are downstream.
4) Underestimating Implementation Days Needed
In order to keep costs down so they can close the deal, some vendors suggest you purchase fewer implementation days than you really need. This leaves you with buyer’s remorse when you learn you must spend more than you expected in order to fully exploit the software – not to mention the cost of a delayed or failed implementation. Vendors will never guarantee they can get the implementation done with the days they quote, but press them to be up front with what it really takes to get their system up and running throughout your shop. Ask for specific examples of other similar projects and their implementation durations – and insist on references.
3) Resistance to Change
Culture shock is possibly the most difficult hurdle in an ERP rollout. Employees are resistant to change for a myriad of reasons; usually rooted in some type of fear. They may be worried that their jobs are in jeopardy or that they will be unable to learn the new system. Some may just be afraid of computers. Whatever the reasons; education is the answer. Try to let them see how the new system will Manufacturing Engineer Salary California benefit them personally. They may be less stressed because all the information they need is readily available; they may be less exposed to failure because they have greater control and visibility or they may simply have time to organize a meaningful thought rather than just run from fire to fire. Once they see how their own lives will be easier, they will actually be excited about the new system.
2) Choosing the Wrong …