Process Manufacturing

Innovation and the endeavor to bring new products to market is a critical success factor for a company. Innovation requires a culture that nourishes creative ideas, a process that enables raw ideas to grow to full-fledged products or processes, strong collaboration that is increasingly global, and protection of intellectual property.

New development can be costly and to remain competitive, a company must align innovation strategy with the business and have complete visibility on costs and milestones. Maintaining such visibility is more challenging when innovation stretches across the organization, business partners and customers. Process manufacturers need secure intuitive technologies. These solutions should integrate with other applications, and seamlessly aggregate data from disparate sources into accessible formats. They should be familiar and easy-to-use so that global team members can manage and share information effectively. For more information download the Innovation Management data sheet.

Process manufacturing companies must evolve to meet the challenges of shifting global demand, the commoditization of products, and pricing volatility in energy, raw materials, and feedstocks. Added to these are new imperatives for sustainability and energy efficiency as companies are under constant pressure to manage risk; customer relationships; and health, safety, and environmental (HSE) issues. No plant operates in isolation, and having a global production network adds complexity to the operation. The stakes have never been higher for process manufacturers to boost quality, efficiency, safety, and regulatory compliance for maximum productivity. For more information download the Operations data sheet.

Industry analysts say that the regulatory compliance burden on businesses is large and increasing. It is estimated that in the past 5 years, over 10,000 new regulations have been created by federal and industry bodies. AMR Research predicted that $80 billion has been spent on compliance programs between 2005 – 2010. As computer and cloud documents replace paper records in the fields of R&D, manufacturing, and other functions, companies need to understand, manage, and control the flow of digital information. Regulation 21 CRF Part 11 sets strict criteria for electronic signatures and document. The FDA requires that these systems maintain the digital equivalent of a paper trail. Non-compliance means fines, delays and even, ultimately, shutting down of operations. For more information download the Regulatory Compliance data sheet.

In an intensely competitive industry with mature demand and constant pricing pressures, process manufacturing companies are focused on profitable growth. To capture growth opportunity, companies are bringing the same discipline to their sales and marketing organizations that they have used to achieve excellence in operations. Profitable growth is about increasing margins as the business grows. It requires a focus not only on revenue drivers such as price and unit volume, but also on increasing the productivity of their people in sales and marketing. For some process companies, it starts with understanding their customer needs and applying the right sales model. For other companies, it’s about giving their sales force more time to sell. Success is about freeing people to develop and build customer relationships. It’s about high-value activities. For more information download the Sales & Service data sheet.