ERP For The Industrial Vehicle Manufacturing Industry
Industrial Vehicle Manufacturers: A Mixed Mode, Complex Industry
The complexities of today’s industrial vehicle manufacturers are unique. From managing vehicle parts and chassis inventories to quoting customer vehicles and managing production scheduling, industrial vehicle manufactures are relied on to produce a slew of much needed parts within short time spans. For one project, they may need to design and build a completely custom vehicle, while another project requires them to produce a configured body with pre-engineered options built to customer specification. Needless to say, this is a high stakes industry where mixed mode manufacturing support is critical.
With over 20 years of experience, Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP has developed a reputation for making the lives and jobs of manufacturers easier. From shop floor to delivery, our one-stop-shop solution gives manufacturers complete visibility into their manufacturing process to help streamline operations, improve efficiencies, lower costs, manage complexity and support growth.
Our team at Marion Body takes pride in providing the exact custom vehicle or truck component needed for each customer’s application. Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP helps us do that, because depending on the nature of the product, we may design and build a totally custom vehicle, or produce a configured body with pre-engineered options, all built to each customer specification. This support for “mixed-mode” manufacturing, plus inherent engineering integration, gives us the competitive advantage we need.
Vincenzo Speziale,
Marion Body Works
What Are Your Manufacturing Pain Points?
As with every industry, industrial vehicle manufacturers face unique pain points including, complex supply chain processes, fluctuating demand, rapidly evolving technology and scheduling and planning challenges. Daily business operations and tasks can easily fall through the cracks without the proper ERP software in place.
Inaccurate & Slow Quoting
Do you struggle to create quotes quickly and efficiently due to a lack of streamlining quote preparation?
Absence of Scheduling
Does your business have issues with establishing a consistent production schedule?
Lack of Visibility
Not being able to see your shop floor and inventory is a problem for your business and your customers may ultimately pay the price.
No Product Configurator
Do you constantly run into issues with producing, ordering and planning controlled products?
No Serial Number and Warranty Tracking
Can you maintain accurate records for unique warranties and serial numbers?
No “Mixed-Mode” Support
Do you manufacture both custom and pre-configured parts and vehicles?
What Makes Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP Unique for Industrial Vehicle Manufacturers?
Product Configurator
The Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP WorkWise Edition Product Configurator allows industrial vehicle manufacturers to simplify the production of vehicle parts (ordered, planned, engineered and controlled) that are assembled for customer order. This tool helps with producing faster and more accurate quoting as well as reducing order lead times and engineering costs.
Bills of Material
WorkWise’s Bills of Material application allows manufacturers to outline the structure of products that they sell, assemble, cost and plan. Manufacturers can directly associate materials to an operation, which improves planning and scheduling and save a significant amount in carrying costs.
Streamlined Quotations
The Quotations application saves time and effort by converting quotes to orders through streamlining the process. Accurate quotes helps industrial vehicle manufacturers generate sales, create accurate quotes and complete quotation content. Save time and improve production.
Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP Software for Industrial Vehicle Manufacturers
+- 5 Challenges for Industrial Vehicle Manufacturers
Manual Quoting Pitfalls
Manually updating spreadsheets or using a homegrown quotation system can end up taking a lot of time, effort and potentially lead to losing important company information or slowing down processes due to a lack of software integration. This may become especially apparent as your business grows. The Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP Quoting application helps sales reps streamline quotation preparation. Using this application, users are able to seamlessly convert customer orders without re-keying data to streamline the order entry process. The entire process is quick and efficient and can help you drastically cut down on the time it takes to prepare quotes.
Mismanagement of Product Lines
Whether specifying a work truck body, dump body, plow, rescue vehicle or custom bus, the answers to a set of pre-defined, logical questions can help determine option choices, to specify and price the parts, dimensionality, and value-added labor needed. The WorkWise Product Configurator allows sales teams and customers to select, configure and order products from manufacturers while making sure that only valid features, options and dimensions are selected.
Product Design Void of Integration
When designing new vehicle components, CAD, also known as Computer-Aided Design, uses 3D technology to assist with the creation, modification, analysis and/or optimization of a design. Whether you use SOLIDWORKS, Inventor, or other CAD systems, that CAD software integrates with Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP so that both systems can work together. Engineers can create a design of how they would like their vehicles accessories to appear and operate, and with the ERP/CAD integration, accurate, bill of material data is integrated so production has faster access to the data for planning and scheduling.
Scheduling and Planning are Nonexistent
Homegrown systems or other antiquated methods of scheduling can cause vehicle manufacturers to order extra materials based on gut feel, rather than real needs. This may reduce the fear of running out of materials but may also cause shortages or overages, which slows down the production process and can inflate inventories. Whether scheduling fab, welding, paint, sub assembly or final assembly bays, with Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP’s Planning suite of modules, the shop can schedule production based on constraints of people skills, machines, materials, and tooling with the ability to balance it all.
Creating Tighter Customer Bond
Satisfied customers are a function of effective customer service, which is achievable with the help of WorkWise Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, which comes fully integrated with Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP software. The all-in-one sales and marketing automation software can help strengthen the bond between vehicle manufacturers and their dealers, distributors and end-users. Ultimately helping to grow the vehicle manufacturer’s sales. WorkWise’s CRM also offers the ability to track all customer communications, order history, support tickets, incidents and resolutions, and more. These features can help in highlighting the need for proactive corrective actions and the reduction of incidents.
+- Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERPP Key Features for Industrial Vehicle Manufacturers
Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP features key applications designed to improve overall production and solve challenges for each sector of the manufacturing industry, including industrial vehicle manufacturing.
Customer Service. Industrial Vehicle Manufacturers service large numbers of people for a number of reasons and at the basis of all business is customer service. Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP provides OnContact CRM integration, which delivers powerful sales, marketing and customer service functions including:
- Sales Automation
- Marketing Automation
- QuickBooks integration
- Customer Order Management
- Estimating
Accounting and Financials. In order to manage the overall production of industrial vehicle manufacturing parts, taking command of your financials is key.
- Job Cost
- Standard Cost
- Payroll
- General Ledger
- Quoting
- Product Configurator
- QuickBooks Integration
Production. The Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP production suite streamlines manufacturing processes in order to keep up with shop floor changes and quality management.
- Quality Management
- Shop Floor Control & Visual Scheduling
- Kanban
- Equipment Maintenance
- Inventory Management
- UPS/FedEx Shipping Integration
Business Metrics. Complete “Fingers on the Pulse” pro-active alerts and KPI Measurements including email, dashboard and mobile alerts will keep you on the leading, not bleeding edge of the ever-changing dynamics of your business.
+- Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP Solution Benefits
Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP provides a host of benefits and business value to industrial vehicle manufacturers, including:
- Improve Business Quality and Efficiency. Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP keeps the internal processes of a business running smoothly and efficiently with the streamlining of business processes.
- Enhance Employee Productivity. ERP cuts down on monotonous tasks thanks to automations, which controls and monitors production. With manufacturers, automation helps to complete financial reports and routine communications.
- Customization Meets Your Needs. Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP can be customized to meet the needs and help solve the issues that your business faces, choosing the applications that you need and how the system is installed (on-premise and the cloud).
Ready to Learn More
Ready to see how our powerful ERP software can benefit your business? Schedule your personalized, one-on-one demo today.
