Streamline your supply chain with unified communications.

As an industry, manufacturing has changed substantially in the last two decades. The supply chain is increasingly globalized. The costs of doing business are going up with increasing labor costs and falling profit margins, demanding greater efficiency and productivity. Two decades ago, manufacturing was a mostly national endeavor, relying on faxes, paper records and basic telephony. Today, even for small manufacturing firms, an entirely domestic supply chain is frequently the exception rather than the rule. As a result, manufacturing firms are relying more and more on information technology to keep costs down and processes efficient. The way customers, suppliers and employees communicate are changing and evolving, and yet, manufacturing firms need to keep all communications processes streamlined in order to safeguard security, efficiency and productivity. Whether your suppliers are in Taiwan and your customers are in Paris, or maybe just Paris, Texas, they form a chain of communications that resembles your supply chain. Manufacturing firms need flexible communications systems that enable them to organize and secure customer information across projects, and that enable staff to make quick and informed decisions, while keeping costs low.

Manufacturing firms face a number of communications challenges.

ncreasing costs. Manufacturing businesses rely on a number of different data systems to manage their customer records. Offices may be in the next county or on another continent, and that means multiple phone systems and long distance charges. Single repositories of customer project information are difficult to develop and costly to keep up-to-date. Multiple technologies and systems mean high costs to ensure that the systems work together effectively.

ncreasingly global business processes strains efficiency. Collaboration is a challenge when a single project may involve a number of different suppliers and even customer stakeholders in different countries and time zones. Manufacturing firms can’t afford telephone tag, missed calls and other hindrances to productivity. Customer information easily spread across e-mails, voice mails, faxes and databases, making it difficult for staff to keep abreast of project details. The Interactive Voice Reponse systems that would enable 24/7 customer self-service are costly and difficult to develop.

Communications security. Collaboration through various parts of the manufacturing process requires increased communications security and impeccable logistics and coordination. Your communications processes must provide the right information to the right employees in order to protect your clients’ intellectual property. The more staff involved in the manufacturing process, the greater the opportunity for mistakes, delays or breaches in security. Separate systems for phone, fax and e-mail messages provide multiple points for security breaches.

Objectworld UC Server can help manufacturing businesses meet these challenges.

Just like an efficient supply chain is more than the sum of its parts, your phone system is more than just dial tone. A phone system should be simple for staff to manage from a central location. It should be low cost up-front, and help eliminate costs where possible. It should make it easy for employees all along your supply chain to collaborate efficiently with customers and vendors. And it should allow manufacturing firms to provide information to customers and potential customers 24/7, whether for a project’s status or for inventory information.

Lower costs while improving efficiency and customer service. Objectworld products simplify the way your employees communicate with customers and suppliers, improving responsiveness while lowering costs. Manufacturing firms can cut low distance charges while improving communications and providing more opportunities for customer self-service. Manufacturing firms can further maximize the investment they’ve already made in their phone systems by deploying Objectworld UC Server Standard Edition™ with their existing PBX, or cut long distances charges with Objectworld UC Server™’s VoIP.

Deliver communications just-in-time. With Objectworld products, staff can stay on top of critical changes to manufacturing processes with new message alerts wherever they are. Staff without ready access to a computer terminal can check their e-mails by phone. They can also increase efficiency while cutting administrative costs by sending, receiving, and forwarding voice and fax messages electronically. And they can improve privacy and customer service by providing customers with round-the-clock remote access to a project’s status by voice or by fax, with Objectworld’s Interactive Voice Response and fax capabilities.

mprove privacy with secure communications. Multiple sources of customer information are difficult to keep secure. With Objectworld products, your IT staff manages a single set of policies for security and access, linking your suppliers, customers and employees. Staff use simple Windows-based software interfaces to manage all electronic messages about a customer or project in one location, lessening the chance of proprietary customer information falling into the wrong hands.

mprove customer service by increasing customer intimacy. Knowing your customers well is an important part of being successful in manufacturing. As a key vendor, they depend upon you to be efficient so that they can be successful. With Objectworld, fax, e-mail and voice mail messages are all available in an employee’s e-mail inbox. All important communications about or from a given customer or a given project is readily available. Staff access voice mails, e-mails, and faxes directly in Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes, and prioritize and group those messages according to customer, project, or levels of urgency or complexity.

Extend your phone system with Objectworld UC Server Standard Edition or transition to VoIP with Objectworld UC Server SIP Edition. Objectworld products provide Unified Messaging, Unified Communications, Interactive Voice Response, fax capabilities and more. Whether you want to extend your investment in your existing PBX or lower costs by moving to VoIP, Objectworld UC Server can help your business meet its challenges. With Objectworld UC Server, manufacturing firms can easily integrate within a single, flexible and simple phone system. Objectworld UC Server provides the productivity and administration tools that businesses need to manage the system directly from anywhere in the system.

Protect your investment. Every day, computers are becoming faster and cheaper, and people around the globe are imagining new ways to communicate. Objectworld’s open, software-based approach means that as computers become faster and less expensive, your manufacturing firm will benefit directly in cost-savings. With Objectworld’s certified and supported and support Connect Partners, manufacturing firms can buy and upgrade third-party hardware and applications, like phones, media gateways, and video conferencing hardware and software, as they need to. Objectworld UC Server also provides flexible, secure and cost-effective integration with other phone systems.