Keeping Your Business Running in Times of Corona Virus

The coronavirus (COVID-19), which started in China, has spread to the entire globe like a bushfire, infecting millions and leaving trails of death. Businesses have also not been spared. As countries implement preventive measures such as curfews and lockdowns, businesses are the hardest hit. This brings about on question for managers and entrepreneurs: “what can you do to keep your business running during a pandemic crisis, such as COVID-19?” The following are some useful tips for you:

Draw a Plan

As the COVID-19 spreads to more countries, businesses are installing operational safeguards to protect their companies and employees. One of the best measures is creating or revamping your emergency preparedness plan. The plan outlines the steps that your business will take to protect the businesses from the effects of a disaster. The plan should include:

• Your effort to protect employees
• What to do if an employee is affected
• The channels of communication during the crisis period
• How to keep the business running during the period of crisis
• Pooling the resources during crisis

Create a Work from Home Policy

Do you have a work from home policy? If not, you better craft one right away. A work from home policy is an arrangement that allows your staff to operate from their homes so that business does not grind to a halt. Indeed, the bulk of business activities, including accounting, meetings, marketing, and customer support, can be offered by your staff from home. So what do you need to make staff operate from home?

• Ensure the staff have computers and access to internet
• Establish working hours when the staff need to be on the business system
• Set a routine for meetings through video conferencing
• Draw a plan for reviewing each staff performance from home to assess the process

Keep Your Staff and Employees Updated

As the pandemic ranges on, you need to keep your staff well updated. Whether you are in the mining industry as highlighted here, your managers and staff want to know what the company is doing to protect them, the plan for continuity, and post-crisis preparations. For example, you might want to relook at the staff-medical cover to ensure they are well catered for in case any of them or their family members get infected.

You should also not forget to regularly remind your staff to stay safe. For example, you should remind them always to use face masks and maintain social distancing all the time. Well, you could even run a program to provide your staff with essential products, including food and safety supplies such as sanitizers and high-quality face masks.

When a crisis such as COVID-19 strikes, it calls for better business planning, and commitment to your staff. Well, you need to know one thing: how you sail through the crisis is what will determine your success after the crisis.

Product Lifecycle Management: What You Need to Know

Getting a new product into mass production, so that it is produced on time, with high quality, in high-volume, and at affordable costs, is a challenge to many enterprises. Indeed, even when you do it correctly, it requires ample time and resources. So, for new businesses that are already looking for ways of cutting cost, how do they get it right? The challenges can be addressed through good planning at every stage of lifecycle development.

The Four Stages of a Products Lifecycle

Product lifecycle denotes the four main stages that a product follows from the introduction to the decline. In each phase, manufacturers are faced by different challenges, which they must address well to optimize profits, deliver value to customers, and repeat the process for success. Here is a brief of the four stages:

• Stage One: Product development: At this stage, you introduce the idea of the new product under consideration. So, all the research and early conceptualization happen here. It also includes the development of prototypes. 00
• Stage Two: Product growth: At this stage, the product moves from being an idea as all systems are installed, and product gets manufactured. This stage also involves marketing and distribution.
• Stage Three: Product Maturity: At this stage, the product has hit the market, and it is competing with others. So, the focus turns to product advertising to drive sales and optimize profits.
• Stage Four: Product decline: At this point, the product starts losing its market share because it has already passed the point of highest demand. Here, depending on the industry, you might want to think about disposal. It is also a great time to take stock of the changing customer demands and think of new products to keep your company moving forward.

How to Manage a Product Lifecycle

When business managers and entrepreneurs think of product lifecycle, what rightly runs into their minds is the management software. But we must indicate that you need more than the product lifecycle management software.  So, here are some of the best practices for good product lifecycle management:

• Make sure the product lifecycle is driven by customer needs. This means at every stage; you use data to make the product customer-oriented.
• During the product development, factor what competitors are offering to craft better products for a bigger market share.
• Although the product lifecycle is broken into four phases, make sure your implementation team have a clear understanding about it from the start to the end.
• At every stage, you must analyze the success and challenges faced by your product. Then, ensure the next product development lifecycle is more effective.
• Ensure the departments of your manufacturing unit are properly integrated. This means that every unit should be versatile enough to respond to changes that might be required to make the product more effective.

If you have a manufacturing unit as brought out here, it is important to understand and properly implement all the stages of the product development lifecycle. Because it will be a repetitive process, make sure to understand the challenges at every stage, and improve the process with the focus on the targeted clients to win a bigger market share.

Why You Need Smart Manufacturing in Your Manufacturing Unit

Smart manufacturing is the new and powerful disruptive force that has the capacity to restructure the manufacturing landscape completely. So, if you are slow to adopt new technologies, there is a danger of getting left out! In this post, we take a closer look at the smart manufacturing to determine what it is, and why you need it.

What is Smart Manufacturing?

Smart manufacturing is a broad term that combines a wide range of technologies that are aimed at helping to optimize whole manufacturing processes. Here are some of these technologies:

• Artificial intelligence
• Blockchain in manufacturing
• Robotics
• Industrial internet of things
• Cyber security
• Condition monitoring

Top Four Benefits of Implementing Smart Technologies in Manufacturing

Think of these technologies as enablers, which are designed to enhance the efficiency of your operations. So, here are the main reasons why you need to implement smart technologies in your unit.

·        Streamlined and Automated Data

Smart technologies help to automate the process of data collection and offer advanced industrial analytics, which help managers draw more informed decisions. With a smart operating environment, you can easily tie the technology with different business systems to measure various performance indicators based on your business objectives.

• Predictive Maintenance

When you have better visibility, it becomes easy to predict and address maintenance problems before they cause lead downtime or more serious issue. This implies that you will never be caught off-guard by a major system breakdown. For example, the industrial sensors fixed on your machines will note when the output or other data changes, signaling you there is need to check the system.

• Cost Reduction

Smart technologies allow you to identify wastes and increase operational accuracy because the system is connected. This implies that you get better insights into your supply chain system, including organizational inventory levels, delivery status and demand cycles. Using this information, you can cut associate to unexpected production volume and excessive inventory.

• Reducing Workforce Related Challenges

At the heart of smart technology is system automation. This means that as a manufacturer, you will be able to launch various projects and complete them with fewer staff. So, having real-time access to data helps to free staff so that they can focus on other tasks. Therefore, you can direct most resources into driving innovation for faster growth and success.

When you implement smart technologies in your manufacturing unit, as demonstrated here, they provide an opportunity to operate more efficiently, cut cost of operations, and improve productivity. So, do not be left behind as other enterprises move on!

Top Four Ways to Differentiate Your Enterprise from Competition

Business differentiation is a unique system that allows you to offer high value to your customers at lower prices, resulting in the creation of a win-win scenario for boosting the enterprise’s viability and profitability. In this case, we provide you with the top five easy to implement ways to differentiate your enterprise.

Product Differentiation

This is the most popular method of differentiating your business. It involves physical and perceived differences about your product. The differentiation can take the form of performance, features, or efficiency depending on the nature of your product.

When dealing with product differentiation, you need to appreciate that it is short-lived. For example, it is pretty easy to duplicate innovation of other products to gain a competitive advantage because the global copyright and patent production laws differ from one country to another. So, you need to be as innovative as possible and use every effort to protect your products.

Service Differentiation

Service differentiation, unlike product differentiation, is relatively broader. Indeed, it surpasses delivery and customer service to include most supporting elements of an enterprise, including staff training, installations, and ease of placing orders. The goal is ensuring that your products can easily be identified irrespective of where your operations are. Think of a business like MacDonald’s. Whether you are using its services in Texas, Shanghai or Moscow, the services are pretty the same. Now, target making your business this unique with a focus on quality so that clients can keep coming back for more and refer others.

Distribution Differentiation

When working on business differentiation, it is important to also work on ensuring your products get to the customers on time. This means you need a good distribution network so that your clients can access the products as promptly as possible. For example, a manufacturer as demonstrated here might opt to link online e-commerce unit with local dealers for faster deliveries.

Distribution differentiation should also include prompt access to expertise and ease of ordering. Furthermore, you also need to install good customer service that can promptly solve all customer issues.

Brand Differentiation

Even as you focus on service and product differentiation, it is also crucial to ensure your brand stands out from others. Notably, brand image is built by things such as providing high levels of service, top performance, and superior product quality. You should also develop a good mission and logo that your enterprise can be associated with. For example, who does not know the Nissan logo?

If you want to be successful in business, make sure that your products, services, and brand stand out well. Besides, you should target to progressively improve the product, and build good relationships with the target customers.

How to Estimate Your Market Size

In addition to developing exceptional products for your enterprise, and hiring the right staff, you also need to also do ample study about your market. One part of this research is determining the size of your market. If you do not know the size of your market, there is a danger of focusing on a market that is small, making it almost impossible to drive sales. So, how do you determine the size of your market?

Define Your Market

The first step in determining your market size is defining the target. The market size can be viewed based on the Total Available Market (TAM), Share of Market (SOM), and Served Available Market (SAM).

• Total Available Market (TAM) refers to the combined revenue in a specific market. As a marketer or investor, you will need to establish the total available market for the specific geo area.
• Served Available Market (SAM) is the percentage of the total available market (TAM) that your business can serve based on the product under consideration, technology and geographical constraints.
• Share of Market (SOM) is a percentage of SAM which your brand currently serves or aims to serve. Note that SOM should always be smaller than SAM unless your enterprise is a monopoly in the niche.

Use a Bottom-up Analysis

You can also estimate the size of your market by determining where you are going to sell the business products, the number of dealers who will stock them, and how many comparable products are already on sale. When doing a bottom-up analysis, it is very important to be objective in order to establish where your business could enjoy realistic growth in the next three-five years. Finally, compare the numbers with the total addressable market. If you get about 1-5% of the market, consider it realistic.

Take a Closer Look at the Competition

You can also estimate the size of a business market by looking at your competitors. Here, you need to establish how crowded your niche is, and the leading brands in the market. For example, if you are the only steel producer for a specific company, as demonstrated here, you should target to win a share market of about 50%. But if the market is crowded, you can only enjoy a smaller market.

Analyze the Static Market

If you are doing running business in a static market, you should anticipate high competition from other traders. You and your competitors are vying for the same clients’ pool. In such a case, it is important to take a closer look and understand customer behavior so that your products look more appealing. So, focus on strengthening your brand and building a community that clients can associate with.

When you establish the size of your market, it becomes easier to identify the needs of customers and outdo competitors. Remember that no matter the current market share, you need to work progressively towards growing it over time.

Best Technologies for Product Prototyping

When designing products for your company, rapid prototyping can help you to save a lot of money in design flaws and final product tests. Unlike in the past, prototyping is becoming cheaper as more advanced technologies hit the market. So, here are the most popular product prototyping technologies.

What is Prototyping?

This is the process of creating objects that have characteristics similar to the product that we target to start manufacturing for release into the market. The prototype allows the manufacturer to take a closer look at the “product” for review before embarking on mass production.

The good thing with the latest technologies in prototyping is that they are fast so that you do not waste time at pre-production phase. 3D printing, commonly known as additive manufacturing, is the most popular strategy used for rapid prototyping today. So, whether your business in the precious metal as noted here, or is in other areas, here are some of the best 3D prototyping technologies to consider.

Stereolithography

Stereolithography, also known as SLA, is a prototyping technology used for parts manufacture utilizing photosensitive resin cured by ultraviolet light. But if the technology uses ultraviolet lamp instead of a laser to cure the resin, the technology is known as Digital Light Processing (DPP). However, both technologies operate on the same principle.

The process involves introducing the base in a resin tank, which goes up as the light beam solidifies the resin in thin layers to create the targeted part. Finally, the product is left to cure in an ultraviolet oven.

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)

This technology also uses 3D printing to create your product in layers. But unlike SLA that uses resin, the technology utilizes powders that melt to create a strong agglomerate. The final product you create depends on the types of the type of powders that are used: ceramics, metals, plastics and even glass.

To melt the powders, you require a powerful laser beam that is generated using 3D computer files, which are run layers after layers. Once a layer is melted, a new one is generated until you have the final prototype or part.

The most notable thing about this part is that it does not require support on different parts because the powder beds itself to support the part. Once the process of sintering is finished, the part/ product is removed from the box and the dust cleared to reveal the finished product.

If you are in manufacturing, it is important to invest in the right prototyping technology to reduce the cost associated with flawed products. We have only highlighted the top two technologies in the market today. You might also want to check other technologies such as rapid prototyping with CNC, rapid prototyping with laser cutting, and triple injection.

Special Tips for Making Your Manufacturing Unit Eco-friendly

Today, the environment has become one of the primary concerns for most sectors in the world. With serious problems such as global warming, pollution of water resources, and species extinction, the main question that people keep asking is: “How do you run an eco-friendly manufacturing unit?” Here are some proven tips to consider:

Conduct Regular Energy Units

Every process in manufacturing plant uses energy. Although there is no way to remove this fact, you should consider practices that help your system become more energy efficient. So, you should start by carrying an energy audit that helps you to understand energy use in your facility. The audit will help you to pinpoint which appliances, machines and departments in your manufacturing are using energy more than expected. Then, craft a good plan to cut cost, which can include:

• Switch from incandescent bulbs to CFL.
• Replace your plant’s HVAC filters.
• Go for programmable thermostats.
• Install energy-efficient motors in your production line.

Shift to Renewable Energy

Most manufacturing units are heavy energy users because they need to drive motors, move heavy items using conveyors, and light the entire facility. To cut your energy intake, you should consider switching to a renewable source of energy. Even if it might be difficult to reduce power consumption below a specific point, it is possible to tap into clean sources of energy such as wind and solar.

Recycle and Reuse Your Waste

Today, many manufacturers stand accused of disposing their wastes into the ecosystem, resulting in severe pollution. But you can deviate from this trend by recycling and using your wastes. For example, the wastewater from the factory can be treated and recycled for other purposes such as cleaning and watering plants.

If you cannot recycle the waste, consider working with a recycling facility that can recycle the waste for you. This is a common trend recommended, especially for companies that deal with hazardous wastes.

Fund Programs that Support Conservation

As a manufacturing unit, you can make a bigger impact on conservation by working with organizations that deal with conservation. For example, UMMC, a mining company with a huge budget for conservation as showcased here, works with the Russian government, conservation NGOs and private enterprises to support their initiatives. So, you can also partner with such organizations, especially the ones that deal with the following:

• Conserving endangered animals.
• Afforestation programs.
• Water conservation.

As a manufacturer, making your operations eco-friendly is crucial in cutting operational cost and making the world a better place. Remember to regularly review your conservation strategy to ensure it is delivering the anticipated results.

Industrial Safety Challenges and Solutions: Your Complete Guide

If you have a manufacturing unit, safety is not just good for business, but a crucial component in determining staff health and organizational culture. In this guide, we will take a closer look at industrial safety to determine the main challenges and solutions.

What is Industrial Safety?

Industrial facilities are faced by a myriad of safety challenges because incidents and hazards that affect both people and the system. Missed days because of injury, fire in the workplace, or chemical hazard can negatively impact your industrial system’s productivity. The ultimate effect could be delayed shipping schedules, poor customer satisfaction, and huge losses.

Therefore, it is prudent to practice good industrial safety for the smooth operations of your plant. Industrial system’s safety is aimed at helping to prevent workplace hazards such as chemical exposure and poor ergonomics so that production runs without interruptions.

Common Industrial Safety Challenges

Today, most investors and managers know about the need for a safe and healthy working environment. But the following obstacles make it difficult to build safe units.

• Complicated Industrial Safety Laws

Most industrial safety regulations are evolving continuously to keep the workplaces safe all the time. While the aim of the regulations is okay, industrial managers find it hard to stay up-to-date with the changes. In most cases, the changes require industrial plants to redesign their operations and install new equipment. Furthermore, you might be also be required to regally train staff on new policies, which is expensive and time-consuming.

• Ergonomic Hazards

In most cases, operations in industrial facilities require repetitive motions which do not provide for a lot of variations. For example, workers in industrial packing lines have to perform the same task for hours, which can cause injuries. But there is little that you can do because the process is unchangeable.

To address the problem of ergonomics, managers encourage workers to take breaks and use protective gear, such as back braces and anti-fatigue mats.

• Progressive Staff Training

One of the best methods of keeping your staff safe is through training. A knowledgeable employee can easily understand the health risks and take timely action to prevent a disaster. However, staff training is expensive for many businesses, especially new ones.

 The Best Way to Solve Industrial Safety Challenges

While it is true that maintaining a healthy and safe industrial facility is complex, it is absolutely important. In many manufacturing units, as noted here, having a good safety plan gives staff the confidence to work harder, knowing that they are safe from injuries or risk of death. So, how do you address the challenges? Here are some useful tips:

• Develop a safe working culture.
• Use the right health and safety software to plan, execute and monitor different strategies.
• Train your staff in turns to avoid interrupting the production schedule.
• Monitor compliance with safety rules and motivate your staff.
• Invest in the right industrial safety equipment and tools.

In manufacturing, it is prudent to always factor safety when making every decision. This will not just help you to operate within the law, but also in building a positive brand and sustained profitability.

Special Tips for Building a Safety Culture

Have you ever wondered why some companies are always ranked at the top in terms of performance? How do they receive so many safety awards every year? The secret is cultivating a culture of safety in the workplace. Even if you have invested in health and safety equipment, but the workers are not motivated, the risk or accidents and disasters will always be high. In this post, we will highlight some tested and proven tips for building a safety culture.

Remind Staff about Causes of Accidents with Posters

One of the most effective methods of telling employees about safety and causes of accidents is accidents. Indeed, you will find many manufacturing units with well-displayed safety posters in the offices and the main entrance. To make the posters more effective, you need to place them not just in the manager’s offices, but the entire manufacturing facility.

Even when the employee is new to an area, it will be easy to warn them of the danger associated with a machine, chemical or other hazards. Remember to make the message on the posters simple and visible even from a distance.

Use Humor when Designing Safety Slogans

When creating a safety plan for your manufacturing facility as reflected here, the primary goal is ensuring that staff get the message as clearly as possible. One way of making your staff remember the safety information is associating it with humor slogans. Try to understand what your staff likes most and associate safety humorously with it. Indeed, you could even ask your staff to suggest the preferred slogans so that they can associate with them more.

Reward those who Go Out of their Way to Keep Others and Plant Safe

There is nothing that tickles in the mind of an employee like appreciating even the little actions that he/she takes to get a job done. When it comes to safety, rewarding employees who show commitment to safety will encourage others to also follow the same trend.

But it is important to ensure the reward helps to move the employees towards greater commitment to safety. For example, you might consider rewarding the entire department as opposed to a single individual so that others do not feel left out.

Peg Promotion to Commitment to Safety

Most staff in a business look forward to one thing: mobbing up the management hierarchy. Therefore, making the commitment to safety one of the pillars of promotion is likely to make everyone more conscious and committed to keeping the facility safe.

When it comes to building a safety culture, no effort should be spared. You should particularly target adopting the innovative methods that will make employees remember the safety messages and move out of the way to stay safe.

Leadership in Times of Crisis

If you have a manufacturing unit, the real test does not come when everything is running smoothly, but in times of crisis. The way leaders behave and guide their organizations in times of crisis mark their credentials as good or bad.

That said, we must indicate that there is no particular guide about how you should run a manufacturing enterprise during a disaster. Besides, most disasters are unpredictable, and they strike when you are least prepared, leaving you with no time to craft a plan. So, how do you lead in a crisis to emerge better and stronger?

Be Honest and Confident

This is one of the biggest pillars that any plant leader requires during a crisis. After a crisis, every person, from your employees to their families and the public look to you for information. They want answers, which you might not have immediately. In such a situation, it is important to ensure you give the right information. However, you also need to balance well, especially when stating the magnitude of the disaster.

Be Decisive

When leading an organization in an industry such as mining as captured here, there are situations when you are required to make fast and hard decisions. Every time you make decisions, most parties expect that you will consider associated pros and cons. But think of a situation where an explosion has happened or people are trapped in a facility such as mining. The primary goal should be getting as many people to safety as possible, even if the idea might not be popular because it involves using a lot of cost.

Avoid Blaming Others

When disasters happen, it is common to see the leaders being quick to blame others for the problem. But this is the wrong thing to do. Well, even if it was an employee who failed to observe one of the safety procedures in a manufacturing unit, you might want to ask a few questions. Was the training you conducted a few months ago effective? Was the employee fatigued or stressed?

Be Positive and Focus on Recovery

Well, you are in a crisis already, but your mind as a leader should be how to get the system back into its feet. To do this, you need to get put together a team to foresee the organization through the crisis. This should be the team that will work with the government investigators, insurance companies, and lawyers if there are lawsuits that might come by.

Remember that when it comes to leadership during a crisis, the goal should be getting to the primary cause of the problem, giving hope, and guiding the organization to recovery. So, make sure to be empathetic, help those who are affected, and provide the right information to the investigative agencies to get the problem resolved as fast as possible.

The Best Non-Monetary Methods of Staff Motivation

When you start a manufacturing facility, the success you can achieve is dependent on staff motivation. For most people, motivation is seen from a monetary point of view. But in addition to wages and salaries, there are many equally effective non-monetary methods of motivating staff in your organization. In this post, we bring you the best five non-monetary methods of staff motivation.

Praise and Recognition

When you hire good staff, most of them simply want to feel valued for their effort and time. When you recognize the effort and commitment of your employees, they feel cared for and valued. Then, they put more effort because it will be appreciated. Indeed, even a simple appreciation such as, “thank you for the effort” will go a long way into making your staff increase productivity.

To recognize and praise your staff, it is important to install a system of noting their efforts at all levels. For example, what is the employees’ contribution at the team and departmental level?

Physical Rewards

Another way of rewarding employees is by giving them physical rewards. You will like this method because it is inexpensive and the effect will last for a long time. Think of something like a gift card to a shopping mall, or a mug with the name of the company written in it. Physical rewards provide your staff with something tangible that they can look at for a long time. Well, even when employees are away from the company, they will be its ambassadors.

Offer Learning and Growth Opportunities

Another method of rewarding your staff is facilitating their training and development. Although you might have hired the best employees as highlighted here, taking them for further training provides the assurance that they are valued.

Employees know that with further training, they are edging closer to get promotions and moving up the career ladder. To make staff training more effective, you should provide diverse learning incentives and allow the employee to advance in an area of interest.

Offering a Flexible Work-Life Balance

Another motivating factor for your employees is a healthy work-life balance. This may include flexibility on when and where staff can work with incentives like flex vacation time and telecommuting options. Most employees will feel valued by allowing them to stay more with their families.

If you run a business, especially a manufacturing unit, you should put every effort into ensuring employees get high motivation for high productivity. The above non-monetary methods of motivation will make your employees work harder and become your ambassadors when away from your company.

The Main Types of Patents to Consider in Industrial Production

Designing a new product is complex and expensive too. In some cases, the idea might have taken years as you researched it before actualizing it. So, when you finally make a breakthrough of creating the product through your manufacturing unit, it is important to protect it using a patent. In this post, we will look at the three main types of patents that you should consider for your products.

Utility Patents

If you make a useful invention which is unique, you should consider protecting it with a utility patent. Utility patents are broken into five categories:

• A process.
• A machine.
• A manufacture.
• A composition of matter.
• An improvement of a current idea.

In many cases, inventions fall under several categories. Take the example of new software; you can consider it a process and a machine. But regardless of the categories in which it falls in, you are only allowed to get one utility patent for it. Once you get the patent, it allows you to stop others from making, using or selling the invention. It is only you who can do that!

Design Patent

When you create an original design that ornaments an already existing device, it might qualify for a design patent. These patents are less common when compared to utility patents because most people prefer working with their own devices. For example, you can get a design patent for a computer icon. To get a design patent, your invention has to be ornamental or aesthetic.

Plant Patents

This is one of the least applied patents today. It is granted for any unique, non-obvious and asexually reproducible plants. In most cases, these patents are granted to entities in agriculture and science niche. Note that the plant patents do not include genetically modified organisms.

When to File a Patent

Using patents is only one method of protecting your invention. So, you should consider filing for a patent once you have created the final product. This means that you have all the details of the product, such as dimensions, chemical composition, and how it works. Then, select the best patent for protecting the invention. For example, you can opt for utility patent to protect a machine or design patent for protecting your new icons.

If you are in manufacturing as outlined here, it is important to ensue you protect your inventions with the right patents. It gives you the monopoly to use it and even enter into business arrangements with others who might be interested in it.

Understanding Blockchain Technolgy: Four Reasons Why You Should Use it In manufacturing

Blockchain technology has evolved rather fast since 2008 when Bitcoin, the first peer-to-peer electronic cash system, was introduced by Satoshi Nakamoto. Now, the technology has evolved so much and all sectors, including manufacturing are exploring ways of implementing it in their systems.

Blockchain, like the name suggests, involves creating small blocks of data and linking them so that they form a type of a chain. As a decentralized and trustless system, blockchain is offering enterprises unique opportunities such as enhanced security. Here are some of the main benefits.

Greater Transparency

The main characteristic of blockchain technology application is that it is transparent. Because blockchain is implemented as a public ledger, it implies that all the data stored in the chain is permanent and can be verified. Therefore, manufacturers are using blockchain to add layers of accountability for their operations. For example, a manufacturing unit can use blockchain to promote transparency in the supply chain system.

Increasing Operational Efficiency

When you install a blockchain system, its decentralized nature means that you can eliminate the need for middlemen in different areas such as payments. Unlike with the traditional financial systems, your customers will be able to send money and make payments on a peer-to-peer basis, without involving centralized systems. This method comes with several benefits:

• Because the transactions are peer-to-peer, they are completed faster.
• Since no centralized organization is involved, the payments can be completed faster and cheaper.

Enhanced Security

Today, blockchain is one of the most secure systems of record keeping. When a transaction is made on the public ledger, it is encrypted and added in the blockchain. And because the data is decentralized, it implies that it is kept in different computers that are distributed all over the world. Therefore, you are sure of one thing: you cannot lose the business information. Indeed, even if viruses of cybercriminals steal or damage other data, the information stored in the public ledger cannot be destroyed.

Better Customer Engagement

When an organization adopts a blockchain system, it is more than a method of storing data. Further, it provides you with an opportunity to create forecasts that can help you address lags in the supply chain. The analytics can also be used to help boost customer satisfaction by establishing methods of building better delivery timelines.

In your manufacturing unit, blockchain technology could be the game-changer because of its diverse applications. The benefits we have highlighted above are the commonest in the market. Whether you have a new or established manufacturing as demonstrated here, it is time to consider implementing blockchain in your system.