NetSuite tackles demands of light manufacturing

-- Manufacturing Business Technology, 6/23/2008

Light manufacturing businesses typically overlap with wholesale/distribution and span a huge spectrum of categories from apparel to furniture to small electronics. Regardless of which category a light manufacturer is in, the challenge has always been management of the bill of material, and assembly build and work order process for both production orders that add to general stock levels.

Software traditionally used by midmarket light manufacturing companies encompasses dozens of on-premise silo applications—one for accounting; one for customer relationship management (CRM); one for work orders; one for inventory management; one for warehouse management. This fragmented approach can raise IT costs, introduce a high rate of errors throughout the business process, offer little visibility into available-to-promise inventory, and decrease business efficiency and accuracy.

Seeking to exploit the delay involved with an SAP Business ByDesign product rollout and give midsize manufacturers an integrated on-demand solution they can put to work today, NetSuite announces NetSuite for Manufacturers, which includes new functionality for Assembly, Work Order, and Bill of Material.

Says Bruce Richardson, a chief officer with Boston-based AMR Research, “Manufacturers have been longing for SaaS [Software-as-a-Service] offerings to build better overall total cost-of-ownership. Until this release from NetSuite, there haven't been any broad SaaS product offerings that include financials, CRM, e-commerce, and manufacturing. The on-demand suite approach—pioneered by NetSuite—could prove to be a major market accelerator.”

NetSuite says the new release leverages the core strength of NetSuite Wholesale/Distribution Edition—launched in April 2006—and is a natural progression of NetSuite’s role in delivering SaaS business suites that address the specific requirements of vertical industries.

NetSuite also reports new product extensions and ISV-built solutions from Omnify Software, Configure One, SuiteCommerce, and SPS Commerce. These vendors are among the many NetSuite ISVs and VARs offering industry-specific solutions that span product life-cycle management to configurator-based quoting and sales.

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