With consumers expecting to buy anything online, the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the digital transformation, manufacturers face more challenges than ever before. From finding skilled labour, to managing inventory and optimizing production, to staying up-to-date with consumerism trends, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for manufacturers to gain a competitive edge.
Large manufacturers use ERP systems to track their inventory or optimize their processes. Small and medium-sized product-making businesses opt for modern MRP software. But if you are a start-up just getting started or a micro-business with limited resources, these three Excel tips might be exactly what you need.
Managing Inventory
Proper inventory management is most probably one of the biggest challenges manufacturers deal with.
Too much inventory? Profit margins are reduced, storage is problematic, and you won’t be able to adapt to your customer’s demand.
Too little inventory? Say goodbye to your reputation, as in today’s fast-paced environment, customers get angry quickly if they have to wait more than a few days for their deliveries.
That’s why it is imperative to optimize your manufacturing, by using spreadsheets to keep track of your inventory from raw materials to finished goods. You can use a template to import your raw materials and finished goods, create bills of materials, and automatically update sales, purchasing, and manufacturing orders.
Managing Accounting
Research shows that 90% of companies use Excel to plan and budget operations. That’s because Excel is an easy-to-use and intuitive tool to arrange and visualize your information.
Using Excel features that automate formulas and calculations, makes it even more efficient to keep track of your accounting, without having to redo operations each time you introduce new data. Income statements and balance sheets are two documents that could easily be created and updated in Excel.
Managing People
Resource management is key to improved efficiency in a labor-intensive process, like manufacturing. Spreadsheets are a simple, convenient, and flexible tool to store and organize information about employees’ hours, training plans, or vacation schedules. It can also serve as a checklist for new hires, staffing or recruiting plans, evaluations, customers, partners, or suppliers.
Final Thoughts
Excel is arguably the easiest choice when looking for solutions to optimize your manufacturing for your micro product-making business. From inventory, to accounting, and resource management, Exel remains the most cost-efficient and easy-to-use solution on the market, while providing customizable options with its advanced formulas and features.