West Midlands-based subcontract machining firm Scott & Baldwin has boosted profitability and customer service using estimating and process-planning software on top of its CAD/CAM and MRP systems. Brian Tinham reports

Mobile phone operator Orange has transformed operations and exposed the value of assets trapped in the WIP ‘black hole’ using sophisticated wireless asset tracking. Brian Tinham looks at how it helps both Orange and its ...

Sales force automation of sorts is being implemented by several manufacturers. But, what’s becoming clear is, first, you need to integrate with other systems, and second, there’s a gap between hype and reality. Frank ...

There’s more to getting into e-business than designing a sophisticated Web site. Frank Booty finds that for manufacturers its all about ‘e-fulfilment’ and ‘e-synchronisation’ – and that means investing in integration ...

Advanced automatic production control techniques, borne out of the refining and petrochemical industries, are becoming ever more open to all of manufacturing. Andrew Ward talks to developers, implementers and users – ...

Claus Heinrich, executive board member of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and latterly e-business software giant SAP, speaks to Brian Tinham about the world’s largest business software provider’s aspirations for ...

Does voice over the Internet sound attractive? More so than it did: Chris Mellor checks out the technology and finds that it could soon help manufacturers gain some surprising business advantages

Implementing enterprise systems is no mean feat, as almost anyone who has been there and felt the pain will tell you. Brian Tinham talks to seven users from across the industrial spectrum and asks them to tell it like ...

Predictive maintenance and integrated CMMS is helping American Standard, formerly Armitage shanks, to improve production and customer service, writes Dom Pancucci

PDM has been reinvented as a ‘cradle to grave’ solution for product and component tracking. Annie Gregory finds out what’s changing and how it’s likely to affect manufacturing businesses