Manufacturers surveyed by IDC’s Manufacturing Insights rated enterprise resource planning software highest among IT tools.
Supply chain research director Bob Ferrari noted in the report he authored that intellectual property protection and supplier strategies remain as the top two risk areas facing manufacturing and retail executives with operations in China.
“By identifying and ranking these risk areas, our aim to help supply chain executives understand current trends for manufacturing lead times, inventory, and transportation costs associated to products originating in China, as well as to anticipate future changes,” Ferrari said.
Respondents to the M-I survey also ranked information technology tools by their impact on operations. Enterprise resource planning software made it to the top of the list, with 70 percent of respondents naming it as the most effective IT tool they have.
ERP rated ahead of several other tools in the IDC survey, titled “Low Cost Manufacturing in China: Annual Survey and 2Q06 Update.” Those other tools included supply chain collaboration portals and storage resource management, among others.
“The increased use and effectiveness of IT and applications is a positive sign for the region,” said Ferrari. “This, coupled with data showing some improvement in lead times, indicates that all in all, operations are progressing.”
ERP allows a business to integrate its disparate processes into an integrated system. These processes consist of non-customer facing ones that handle the operations of a business. They permit the control and measurement of those processes.
Solutions in ERP represent a significant and competitive business for some of the biggest industry names in the world. IBM, Oracle, SAP, and others have a presence in the industry.
Up and coming solutions delivered in Software-as-a-Service formats, such as those from Salesforce.com’s AppExchange, have made these high-end capabilities available to the small to mid-sized business market. ERP is no longer limited to massive manufacturers or equally-sizable technology providers.
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David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business.
