Running a metal manufacturing business is complex, as you’re constantly juggling inventory, storage, production, and sales, trying to keep all of those plates in the air. The bigger you are and the faster you scale, the more complicated it becomes. But unified data is here to simplify that process, optimize your business, and keep everything running efficiently.
What is Unified Data?
Unified data is a single source of consolidated information gathered from various points.
Every modern business relies on data, whether it’s to maintain relationships with suppliers, check production, or determine what customers want. With unified data, you can pool all of this information and present it more clearly to your employees.
Every aspect of your business benefits, as it enhances communication, prevents missteps and oversights, controls costs, improves production, and keeps customers, employees, and suppliers happy.
Controlling Costs with Unified Data
Costs spiral when lines of communication become disjointed. Your employees need visibility in every step of the acquisition, production, and sales process. Once they know which materials are being purchased, how quickly products are made, and how much each of these steps cost, they can find ways to streamline and optimize.
If all of that information is controlled by separate departments, optimization becomes a staggered, tiresome process, but with clear and full visibility provided by unified data, your employees can see the issues, plan changes, and judge how effectively they are implemented.
Optimizing Inventory and Production with Unified Data
Unified data promotes integration across the business, connecting the sales, purchasing, production, inventory management, fulfillment, marketing, and customer service departments into a single, unified source.
The benefits include:
No Under- or Overstocking
The purchasing team can check the current production cycle to see if inventory matches demand. At the same time, they can avoid costly overstocking, making sure that the business has exactly what it needs to meet demand and isn’t holding onto surplus stock.
Automation
Unified data is a key part of automating production cycles. Automated systems rely on vast quantities of data—the more information they can access, the more they can learn about the business and its needs. Using unified data, businesses can automate menial tasks, freeing up vital resources for use elsewhere.
Rather than relying on error-prone human interaction for tasks such as inventory management, quality control, and data input, the system will take over. It’s quicker and easier, and could save the company money and prevent reputation loss.
Quality Control and Maintenance
The days of manually checking the quantities of raw materials and the state of equipment are over. Employees can access all of this information from a single source, judging when machines need to be replaced and maintained, and when the quality of production has dipped.
Automatically Routed Jobs
By visualizing the production cycle, employees can seamlessly navigate each step, taking products from raw materials through to finished items prepared for sales. With a few simple commands, most of this can happen automatically.
How Unified Data Improves Customer Satisfaction
A single source of information means you’ll have insights into every step of the order process, and you will know:
- The quantity of raw materials you have in stock
- The speed of production and quality control
- How many products your customers are ordering
- How quickly those products are being shipped
- The profitability of your marketing campaigns and the success of your sales teams
With this information, you can judge whether certain products are successful and whether you should make any changes to inventory, production, or sales processes. Your customers will get a better—and possibly cheaper—product, shipping times will be reduced, and you can more accurately predict and prepare for future demand.
You’ll also be making things easier for your sales and marketing teams. If a customer asks about an out-of-stock item or needs to track an order, they’ll be able to see every step of the process and can provide customers with definitive answers and accurate timeframes.
Your employees can use unified data to build detailed customer profiles, combining personal details (age, gender, location) and order history to better understand their needs and predict future purchases. With this information, it becomes easier to target them with remarketing campaigns and turn those costly conversions into profitable lifetime values.
How to Unify Data in Your Business
Unifying data can be a complex and time-consuming process, requiring:
- Data Cleansing: Making sure the data you collect is actually useful and easy to understand.
- Standardization: Creating similar formats for all of the data, eliminating the need for various tools and programs.
- Implementation: Once you clean and standardize the data, it needs to be integrated into a data management model for easy access.
An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system can assist with all of this. Ubiquitous throughout the manufacturing sector, these systems create a single, unified source of information for all of your business activities. You can customize the system to meet your specific needs, including aspects such as inventory management, human resource management, and customer relationship management, among others.
Once you have implemented an ERP solution, you don’t need to worry about collecting, storing, or unifying the data, as everything feeds into the same system and will be presented in clear and readable formats for your employees.
Unlock the Power of Unified Data Today
RealSTEEL™ is a business management solution built for the steel and metal fabrication sector. It uses cloud-based storage for low-cost setups and instant access, providing solutions for businesses of all sizes and budgets.
We can work with you to create a tailor-made solution designed for your business, including various programs, tools, and solutions, such as:
- Inventory management
- All-in-one purchasing
- Coil slitting software
- Plate processing software
- Human resource solutions
- Simplified sales quoting
- Warehouse management
- Multi-line processing software
- Flat rolled software
- Steel nesting software
- Steel service center software
- Sheeting and leveling software
- Customer relationship management
If you’re ready to unify your data and optimize your business, contact us today to request a demo. We can also answer any questions you have about RealSTEEL™ capabilities, implementation, and operation.
