Cloud Manufacturing Suite Designed to Run Global, Mid-Size Businesses

June 30, 2010
NetSuite claims new platform cuts costs, increases productivity for mid-sized manufacturers

NetSuite Inc. develops business management software it markets as “cloud computing” solutions — i.e., subscription-based applications that are hosted off-site on the provider’s servers with data, applications, and other necessary resources supplied on-demand, like electricity from the grid. Now, it has introduced NetSuite Manufacturing Edition, which it calls “the first and only cloud manufacturing suite.”

NetSuite Manufacturing is designed mid-size manufacturers who want to develop and maintain a global business, but the developer emphasizes it offers agility and visibility, including comprehensive support for multi-company, multi-plant, multi-location and multi-currency enterprise.

The critical functionality in this new offering includes multi-site planning and management, material requirements planning (MRP), production management, engineering change control (ECC), shop floor control, and work-in-progress (WIP) management. NetSuite says the new module builds on its cloud business management expertise with complex, competitive vertical industries.

NetSuite explains that manufacturers must contend with “intense cost pressures, relentless competition, global expansion challenges and rapidly changing customer demand. Obsessing over the delicate details of integrating separate software for sourcing, fulfillment, inventory, accounting, and customer service produces no value, and instead introduces unnecessary complexity, and inefficiencies requiring the care and feeding of costly IT resources.”

Its response, NetSuite Manufacturing Edition, involves a series of capabilities and benefits:
— Seamless management of global businesses, including comprehensive support for the multi-company, multi-plant, multi-location and multi-currency enterprise, with instant real-time visibility into all aspects of operation
— A fully integrated cloud computing enterprise management system which enables manufacturers to establish new locations with no need to build expensive server farms or virtual private networks in each new territory, slashing the huge costs associated with conventional IT for on-premise software
— A flexible, customizable business platform easily adapted to complex manufacturing processes from light assembly to discrete manufacturing, which can be quickly retooled as enterprise demands evolve.

"After deploying NetSuite to manage our multi-national manufacturing business, we were able to reduce excess inventory improve margins and improve our overall global business," said David Duff, CFO of Xtellus, a manufacturer of fiber-optic networking components with domestic and overseas operations.

According to CFO Jim McGeever: "With NetSuite, manufacturers now have the suite they need to move their key operations to the cloud and reap the many productivity and cost reduction benefits cloud computing has to offer."

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