FEATURE Smart factories & software
TURNING THE PAGE: GOING DIGITAL Automated
Josephine Coombe, CCO Europe, Nulogy, outlines the hidden risks of paper-based and disconnected manufacturing systems, and shows how to overcome them
R
esearch by Crown Records Management found that 49% of UK businesses still operate a physical paper filing system. In manufacturing, that reliance is
rarely confined just to back-office tasks, it shows up in shift handovers, quality checks and maintenance logs. Even where an ERP or WMS is in place, vital operational data often lives in a parallel world of paper and spreadsheets.
Many manufacturing plants have therefore evolved into a patchwork of different processes and tools. An ERP manages orders and finance, a WMS tracks stock, and separate spreadsheets cover production reporting, quality, and safety. Others will have customised their ERP or WMS to fill gaps. Both approaches can work, but they create blind spots that make it harder to meet rising expectations for speed, compliance and transparency. In manufacturing, there are two serious ways that manual entry can create blind spots for your operations teams. The first is the quality of the plant’s data. When information is copied between systems or re-entered from paper, it can arrive late and often incomplete. Managers end up making decisions on outdated data, while operators waste time creating the reports.
In addition, while paper-based checks can pass an audit, they can be fragile. Records can be missing or stored in the wrong place, and assembling evidence becomes slow when customers need answers quickly. When quality and compliance data is captured digitally and linked to production and inventory, teams can spot patterns early, act faster, and reduce rework, scrap and the risk of recalls. Digitally enforced processes also ensure that data is always available for audit and compliance reviews. The second blind spot concerns downtime. In many factories, machine stoppages and the preceding causes are logged and written down but never analysed. Without consistent, structured data, it is difficult to identify recurring trends and prioritise manufacturing process improvements. This is how businesses get trapped in firefighting, even when they suspect there is capacity to unlock within production, without data they are unsure where it is and therefore how to improve. ERP and WMS platforms are essential, but
they are not built to capture the full reality of the shop floor. Customisation of these systems offers a potential route, but can be expensive, slow to
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change and difficult to upgrade. It can also reduce adoption if workflows do not match how operators work.
Further, any future updates or changes to the
software will require additional time and costs that aren’t usually considered in the initial purchase. Plus, many, if not most of these software vendors are unfamiliar with the realities and complexities of the manufacturing plant floor. Adapting ERP and WMS for the plant floor can
result in a widening gap between what systems report and what is truly happening on the production floor. A more practical route is through a purpose-built
software system that adds a connected operating layer to bring production, quality, compliance, maintenance and warehouse execution into a shared workflow and data backbone, while integrating with existing ERP and WMS systems.
This is the logic behind Nulogy’s Manufacturing Operating System (MOS). Rather than forcing a ‘rip and replace’ approach, MOS is modular and can integrate with existing systems. Manufacturers can start with the capability that tackles their biggest pain point today, then expand at a pace that suits the business. A connected operating layer gives teams real- time visibility into what is happening now. It helps identify downtime consistently, supports audit-ready compliance through digital workflows, and improves decision-making by creating a single source of operational truth. It also creates the dependable data foundation needed to scale automation. For manufacturers still reliant on paper, spreadsheets or heavily adapted systems, a useful starting point is to map where operational information is created, who uses it, and where it is re-entered, emailed, or lost. Those handoffs are where risk and cost accumulate. Closing them with connected, purpose-built workflows turns into a strategic asset. Teams spend more time improving performance, protecting margins, and meeting the demands of brands, retailers and OEMs for speed, transparency and control.
Nulogy
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