The Context of Manufacturing

whitePaper | March 16, 2022

What is lights-out warehousing? The simple answer is a facility without people. One that relies entirely on automated equipment, to the point that no manual touches are necessary. With no employees required on the floor, operations do not need to turn the lights on, hence the term “lights-out warehousing.”

whitePaper | January 11, 2023

Manufacturing industries have been a source of social and economic growth for both developed and emerging economies. Today they stand at a critical juncture. The increase in global disruptions, from geopolitical and macroeconomic events to the accelerating pace of technological innovation, is having a profound impact on the state of global production systems and is forcing unprecedented transformation across value chains.

whitePaper | May 3, 2023

From Henry Ford’s moving assembly line to Taiichi Ohno’s Toyota production system, now known as lean production, manufacturers globally have constantly strived to make their operations better. The concept of lean, widely known for its tools to eliminate non-value added processes, has been at the forefront of management for the last five decades.

whitePaper | November 23, 2022

American manufacturing is a quintessential industry and represents 11.39 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (the overall output of the American economy), contributing significantly: every $1 spent in manufacturing adds $2.47 to the economy.1 The sector makes a disproportionate economic contribution, too, including 20 percent of the nation’s capital investment, 35 percent of productivity growth, 60 percent of exports, and 70 percent of business R&D spending.2 Since there are almost 300,000 factories in the United States, the economy benefits greatly from manufacturers. To ensure these companies remain competitive, adopting new technologies is imperative. To that end, companies must also determine what tools and software will be necessary to most effectively leverage these new technologies.

whitePaper | January 1, 2023

The manufacturing industry is entering a period of rapid reconfiguration, driven by the complex interaction of technological, geopolitical, macroeconomic, and financial factors. The long-term trends that have shaped international commerce during the post-Cold War period are changing. The engines of the era—the relatively free flow of capital across borders, the lengthy and complex global supply chains, the super-cycle of cheap credit, the stable supply of energy, and the steadily liberalizing global trade regime—have stalled or reversed course, as we enter a new period defined by very different trends, including the reappearance of high inflation and a new appreciation for credit risk.

whitePaper | May 11, 2022

The first industrial revolution transformed the manufacturing sector, helping it take the first steps toward automated operations. The fourth industrial revolution, today, is modernizing various sectors of manufacturing operations with artificial intelligence(AI). The use of AI in the manufacturing industry has helped process the account receivables data, tackle delayed payments, missing invoices and addressed various challenges caused by labor-intensive processes.