Blog Profile / The Manufacturing Industry Blog
| URL : | http://manufacturingindustry.blogs.xerox.com/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Industries / Manufacturing | |
| Posts on Regator: | 27 | |
| Posts / Week: | 0.1 | |
| Archived Since: | March 4, 2008 | |
Blog Post Archive
The Digital World is Ready to Step it Up a Level
Acquire new customers and your business will grow. It’s simple, right? New customers are everywhere. Our expanding, global economy opens up markets for new customers in just about every corner of the world. We just need to reach them. Unfortunately, it’s not always as easy as it sounds. However, we see some interesting trends. Progressive [...]
How Global Delivery Centers Can Reduce Capital and Operating Costs
In today’s economic environment, manufacturing companies need to downsize real estate and eliminate non-core functions in facilities and operations to help reduce capital expenditures and overall costs. I worked with a global manufacturer of tires recently to do just that. To downsize space and operations, this manufacturer planned to move into a new World Headquarters [...]
Technical and Marketing Documentation – a Key Area for Improvement and Savings
As a Principal Consultant for the Xerox Manufacturing practice, I help clients streamline their business processes, especially those involving documents. We recently reviewed a Fortune 100 company’s technical and marketing documents,...Show More Summary
Keep Product Documentation Vision In Mind While Solving Immediate Problems
Are you getting an efficiency boost from your product documentation? The consistent message I hear from manufacturing executives is the need to become more efficient, improve quality and reduce costs. But one of the areas they overlook is their technical and marketing product documentation. Typically they do not have a well thought out vision across [...]
iPad for Manufacturing Parts Catalogs?
I didn’t expect to become an early adopter of the iPad, but when I got one as a birthday gift this past April, I was truly surprised how quickly I started using it. Now, six months, later it is never far from my side, and this unexpected gift has definitely fed my “information” habit. [...]
How Globalization Can Help Drive Your Growth
As the world becomes more interconnected, the ability to market products and deliver services around the world becomes more critical to your success. As the VP of Xerox’s Creative & Technical Communications (CTC) organization, I see many clients looking to grow revenue by expanding their global customer base. However, globalization brings a unique set of challenges, [...]
Trusted Advisors Make for Better Customer Communication
Outsourcing is a major trend in today’s industry, but document outsourcing isn’t typically top-of-mind when you raise this topic. It has been interesting to work with many of our largest managed print centers directly, especially those that we service for our manufacturing clients. Across dozens of examples, good communication is what I have seen ensure [...]
A Different Look at Supply Chain Management
When manufacturers think about their supply chain they typically think about the parts, components, and raw materials needed to build a product. Procurement manages these parts very closely, consolidates the number of suppliers, and...Show More Summary
Accelerating Globalization
Clearly getting products to market quickly has become even more important for manufacturers as competition continues to grow and there are ever more global players. There are so many challenges today in streamlining the process. Product engineers and designers must communicate with suppliers around the world, actual production may take place in multiple locations in various [...]
Product Safety – On the Critical Path to a Manufacturer’s Success
I was reminded again of how critical product safety is while listening to the news this morning as another popular toy’s safety is being questioned. Product recalls have become all too commonplace and it seems items are scrutinized even more closely with the visibility of the holiday shopping season. Clearly this is a serious issue, [...]
What Comes After Cash for Clunkers?
It has been interesting to watch the Automotive industry and how they are dealing with the economy. Clearly “Cash for Clunkers” provided a big boost for car dealers in July and August. Although speaking with a friend who manages automotive lending for a large bank, she saw the majority of sales were the class 2 economy cars, [...]
Time to Security
Last month I wrote about some considerations for document and content security. I learned about another consideration in security that we have been working on with a provider of energy services. They face stringent security requirements especially since they are involved with Nuclear Power stations. In order to keep costs in check they rely on [...]
Enterprise Security
Security is something we hear about daily. From home security to homeland security, and now cyber security, there is a lot to be concerned about. President Obama is even creating a “cyber czar” who will be tasked to develop strategy to protect the nation’s government and private run networks. Security breaches or attacks are almost a common occurrence now for [...]
New Viewpoint Coming
Hello! I have been asked to take over this Manufacturing Blog from my colleague Lynette McTigue. I have to say it is a very remarkable time to be discussing Manufacturing! There is so much in the news today. Who would have thought GM would ever declare bankruptcy or Chrysler would go to the Italians (Fiat). Xerox [...]
China and Your Intellectual Property Risk
As manufacturers continue to make investments overseas and integrate a global supply chain, intellectual property theft will remain a common issue. A recent article in the Economist highlights the significant increase in lawsuits i...
What Does It Mean to Be Green?
Manufacturers are spending large amounts of energy, time and money to improve their sustainability image. We are developing new products that are more environmentally friendly, reducing our carbon footprint, improving productivity,...
Back to Basics Best Practices
As effective product launches are critical to a company’s continued success, I have gleaned some best practice ideas from across the Internet in order to highlight how manufacturers improve their new product development proces...
Collaboration Fuels Manufacturing Innovation
In response to the pressures of product complexity, competitive pricing, supply chain transparency and partner choices, manufacturers have embraced innovation. According to The Economist, a company must replace 10% of its revenue...
American Auto Makers Running Out of Gas
General Motors, Ford Motor Company and Toyota Motor Corporation all posted their quarterly numbers this week, and GM and Ford remain underwater. The American Auto industry continues to loose ground to Toyota and other foreign ma...
Chemical Industry Woes Hit Manufacturers
Today, The Wall Street Journal reported that oil prices slipped slightly as the dollar continues to lose ground. Additionally, the world is hoping that OPEC increases oil production as an outcome of the December 5th meeting. No...