Creating Competitive Advantage in Manufacturing

In the Spotlight SAS in the Manufacturing Industry: Exploiting the Potential (PDF) Read how SAS' solutions are being used for demand forecasting, service parts optimization, warranty management, aftermarket services, predictive maintenance and manufacturing sustainability. SAS Manufacturing News Quarterly news alert with technology updates and case studies on supply chain analytics and other manufacturing industry topics.

In this competitive world, manufacturers can no longer rely on low prices, high quality and on-time delivery alone to keep them on top. These attributes – advantages a decade ago – are now just requirements to stay in the game. And the rules of the game are constantly changing. Manufacturers face increasing globalization, more competition than ever, and customers whose demands reflect their own knowledge and expectations of a global market.

Manufacturing companies today track and move extensive inventories, generate a greater number of products, negotiate with numerous suppliers, and maintain a multitude of quality standards. They also have an ever-increasing need to acquire, satisfy and retain additional customers to remain profitable. Because of these complex pressures, it is imperative that all the links in the supply chain be managed successfully.

SAS^® solutions deliver critical advantage by helping companies turn data into knowledge, enabling them to develop unique demand, supply, operational and customer insights. As a result, companies improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their supply chain, manufacturing process and after-sales service network, thus maximizing profits at optimal levels of customer satisfaction.

SAS solutions for manufacturing include:

SAS® Supply Chain Intelligence – Deliver quality improvement, customer satisfaction and higher profits with sound supply chain strategies. Advanced analytical techniques, made available to business users up and down the supply chain, drive innovation, reduce costs and fuel top-line growth.

SAS® Customer Intelligence – Regardless of a company’s industry or size, marketing must help enhance the customer experience, achieve profitable revenue growth and improve marketing performance. SAS solutions enable you to deepen your customer insights, choreograph your customer interactions and continuously improve your organization’s marketing performance.

SAS® Demand-Driven Forecasting – Drive the development of your consensus forecast in conjunction with the sales and operations planning (S&OP) process. Combining the power of automation, analytics and workflow, this SAS solution generates the most unbiased and accurate consensus forecast on a large-scale basis.

SAS® Forecasting for SAP APO – Ideal demand forecasting and planning that can transform your organization from one that simply reacts to one that is proactive using seamless integration of superior SAS forecasting with the strength of SAP APO planning capabilities.

SAS® Service Intelligence – Monitor, predict and optimize your entire service chain. This family of flexible, extensible solutions includes prebuilt, service-chain-specific data and analytical models, as well as streamlined processes and techniques that speed up both implementation and results, giving you a fast track to significant ROI.

SAS® for Sustainability Management – Measure, manage and report on the triple bottom line – environmental, social and economic indicators – and determine business strategies that reduce risk and increase shareholder value.

Every day, you gather volumes of data that could help you move into a more competitive position. This data flows from all directions – the boardroom, the assembly line, customer contacts and all points in between. But unless you know what to do with it, all that valuable data is useless. With SAS, you can turn data into a powerful tool for your business.