INTEGRATION SUCCESS WITH THE INDUSTRIAL TRANSFORMATION PLATFORM

The Challenge:

INDUSTRIAL TRANSFORMATION IS MISSION CRITICAL AMID DISRUPTION - BUT FOR MANY MANUFACTURERS, THE BEST PATH FORWARD REMAINS ELUSIVE

Labor shortages. Geopolitics. Inflation. Tariffs. Cyberattacks. Climate policy.

Change is the only constant in modern manufacturing and supply chain operations and businesses are at a crossroads. They must either implement intelligent, real-time optimization across their people, processes and systems or continue with business as usual and run the risk of being unprepared for the next disruptive event. 

To complicate matters further, most organizations have achieved some level of digital maturity and are actively working to transform into an Adaptive Enterprise that can respond to change with speed and agility, but the process isn’t one-size-fits-all and challenges remain. Many are finding that optimizations made for yesterday’s challenges and systems are no longer valid and are experiencing the consequences of failing to transform, including productivity plateaus, supply chain failures, aging systems, employee attrition, inventory imbalances and security vulnerabilities.

The latest data suggests businesses should approach resilience-building with a sense of urgency. Nearly 75% of executives surveyed by the National Association of Manufacturers identified labor shortages are their top business challenge and the US alone is facing a 2.1 million manufacturing skills gap by 2030. Deloitte reports that the average lead time for production materials has yet to return to the pre-pandemic average of 63 days and manufacturers can expect to wait more than 30 months for some critical components due to supply chain constraints. 

Organizations have no choice but to transform, yet for many the process is starting to feel like an endless and uncertain cycle. Modern manufacturers and their supply chain partners are looking for ways to break free and future-proof their operations once and for all. 

The Solution:

WHEN FAILURE TO TRANSFORM IS NOT AN OPTION, MANUFACTURERS CHOOSE THE QAD INDUSTRIAL TRANSFORMATION PLATFORM

To remain competitive and not only survive but thrive amid disruption, manufacturers are adopting smart technologies and even smarter practices with the QAD Industrial Transformation Platform. 

Longtime QAD ERP customers Beckett Air, Jel Sert and Pharmacal serve distinctly different industries but experienced many of the same challenges facing modern enterprises, including the skills gap, retiring workforce turnover and overreliance on manual processes. All three companies found the solutions they were looking for in QAD ERP integrated with QAD Redzone Connected Workforce. QAD acquired Miami-based Redzone in early 2023, which started 10 years ago as an early mover in the Connected Workforce space.

QAD Redzone Connected Workforce offers QAD customers a connected frontline worker (CFW) solution, empowering both the back office and execution arms of their enterprise. 

“QAD ERP is very good for the office; for the people at a desktop. QAD Redzone* is the opposite; it’s mobile, very good on the floor and simple to use. It was a wildfire for communication. They now feel like they belong and you’re listening and respect them, whereas it was silent before,” explains Simon Richards, Vice President of Manufacturing and Engineering at Jel Sert.

LNS Research reports that more than 75% of companies have or are preparing to implement a CFW initiative and that doing so is an indicator of success for any industrial transformation program. QAD Redzone Connected Workforce + QAD ERP, one of QAD’s standard Shop Floor Packages, was designed for seamless integration and is built on a “System of Action'' that prioritizes worker-centricity, productivity, collaboration and engagement. 

“The big differentiator with QAD Redzone* was the amount of employee engagement we felt we could get from it,” states Amy Roberts, Director of Finance and Procurement at Beckett Air. “The labor market had started to change post-COVID and so we decided that, to differentiate ourselves as an employer, it would be important to find something special and unique. 

“To give our people a voice – that to me was the biggest thing that QAD Redzone* could offer that some of the other things didn’t have,” continues Roberts.

Recognizing that software alone cannot guarantee customer success, QAD emphasizes the importance of harmonizing people, processes and systems to facilitate transformation. This is what QAD calls the QAD Industrial Transformation Platform, an initiative that isn’t a line item on a price list or a piece of software or service but a holistic approach for taking customers from where they are today to becoming an Adaptive Enterprise. 

The QAD Industrial Transformation Platform encompasses everything QAD does, from the design of its product and prescriptive implementation services to coaching, customer success and beyond. It is born from the recognition that the journey toward an Adaptive Enterprise is different for every business and that people and processes are a crucial, yet often overlooked part of the process. 

For Beckett Air, Jel Sert and Pharmacal, the ideal solution lay in QAD ERP + QAD Redzone Connected Workforce but it may be different for other companies. With the QAD Industrial Transformation Platform, customers can leverage industry and domain expertise, Effective On Boarding, frontline worker coaching, a robust integration framework, Process Intelligence, Pragmatic AI and other elements to better achieve their goals today and tomorrow. 

The Benefits:

AN EMPOWERED FRONTLINE INCREASES PRODUCTIVITY AND RETENTION, FACILITATING THE SHIFT TO AN ADAPTIVE ENTERPRISE

QAD ERP and QAD Redzone Connected Workforce have helped workers in more than 1,000 manufacturing facilities find their voice, including those on the frontlines of Beckett Air, Jel Sert and Pharmacal. 

“Just by taking our quality audits, weight checks, line startups and machine setups, and getting them into QAD Redzone*, roughly 80% of our paperwork has been eliminated. We’ve had a 12.5-point improvement in overall equipment effectiveness (OEE),” explains John Buchman, Vice President of Operations at Pharmacal.

Jel Sert’s Richards reports a similar improvement: “We saw a 9-point OEE improvement in the first 90 days. It’s incredible to see so much passion that we just didn’t see before.”

Beckett Air, Jel Sert and Pharmacal have found that an empowered frontline enables real-time feedback, which increases productivity, improves morale and boosts retention. Other companies using QAD Redzone Connected Workforce have reported similar results, including a 29% increase in productivity and a 74% improvement in engagement, on average. 

“Integrity, excellence and profound respect for the individual are our three core values. I see QAD Redzone* with all three of those,” shares Roberts of Beckett Air. “QAD Redzone* shows you where you need to focus your energies to make the most impact on a financial level. It will pay for itself very quickly.”

Leadership from all three companies also reported a seamless integration process, making it easy for their enterprises to extend the benefits of QAD ERP with the improvements QAD Redzone Connected Workforce has to offer in terms of collaboration, problem-solving and productivity.

“I was worried about how it was going to play nice with our ERP system, which is QAD, but everything turned out well. We’ve loved QAD Redzone* ever since,” states Dennis Pagsanjan, Director of Application Development at Jel Sert.

“We wouldn’t have even been exposed to QAD Redzone* if it wasn’t for the acquisition. It’s been really great to work with the integration team and really get everything under one system versus having these ancillary outside systems,” explains Beckett Air’s Roberts. 

“In the past, some of the software I’ve been tasked to use was very complicated. One thing I can say about QAD Redzone* is that it’s very intuitive,” agrees Marcus Tremper, Operations Manager at Beckett Air.

“Being here as long as I’ve been, that was the most exciting thing for me was being able to see something, getting out of the numbers, getting more into how we can work as a team. It was a culture shift,” concludes Chris Dorow, IT Manager at Beckett Air. 

*QAD Redzone is today known as QAD Redzone Connected Workforce.