It takes a lot for a manufacturing company to succeed. Such companies need to know how to manage various priorities, including their clients, suppliers, and own workforce. There’s also the constant management their equipment requires.

Even a single incident of mismanagement could cause serious problems. The importance of management in the manufacturing industry is probably why so many of these businesses appreciate the value offered by managed services companies.

4 Ways Managed Service Companies Can Improve Your Manufacturing

Even among competitors, every manufacturing company is different for many reasons. However, despite these differences, most have realized that managed services companies are an asset because of the following services they offer.

1. Hardware Services

No matter how big your manufacturing company is, it goes without saying that as long as it has an office, it needs the hardware to go along with it. One of the most important factors when considering your office’s hardware is ensuring you have the right devices to meet your document-output goals. These could include:

• All-in-One Multifunction Devices (MFDs)
• Copiers
• Fax Machines
• Scanners
• Streamline Printers

Many manufacturing companies require production print and wide-format printers, too. These are the types of machines that can handle high-volume demand, especially when quality is critical. Managed services companies can provide all these devices and offer ongoing security necessary to keep them safe, a requirement for working with many other industries (e.g., government contracts).

2. Managed Print Services

Managed print services continue to grow in popularity among manufacturing companies. One of the reasons for this is because it’s the easiest way to bring excessive printing costs per page down to size. As most manufacturing companies tend to go through a lot of paper, this is a benefit that’s too good to ignore.

That’s just one of the many managed print services benefits that have won over this industry. Another is that a custom-designed system best supports the kind of constant output and uptime that these companies require on a daily basis.

As we mentioned earlier, executives at manufacturing companies have enough equipment they need to worry about. By investing in managed print services, they get to outsource the management of their office-critical devices without having to wonder about the result.

Furthermore, managed print services have become a requirement for manufacturing companies as the best possible way to keep their devices safe. Printers are vulnerable to hackers, which is why they’ve quickly become one of the criminals’ favorite targets. The more printers a company has, the more vulnerabilities for a criminal to exploit. As most manufacturing companies rely on a small army of printers, having someone else monitor them for potential security breaches is a major benefit.

3. IT Solutions

While companies in the manufacturing industry usually thrive on heavy machinery, they rely just as much on robust IT networks. This is why most also rely on managed IT solutions, as well. Managed service companies can help protect them against the likelihood of:

• Data loss
• Network failures
• Security breaches

The best-managed services companies also provide monthly maintenance work to ensure networks are always running at their best. Remote monitoring keeps it safe from any cyber attacks and other threats.

These companies will also offer a U.S.-based help desk, so their clients can call for help or to ask any questions 24/7. Despite all of this, by outsourcing these extremely important tasks, manufacturing companies can reduce overhead.

4. Productivity Solutions

Though modern manufacturing process may sometimes involve some manual work, most of it has been entrusted to machines. Similarly, productivity solutions were designed to eliminate the need to enter data manually. Instead, they make it easy to import information by allowing users to scan it into devices.

Managed service companies can offer a centralized location where their clients can store, manage, and share all their data securely, as well. The entire manufacturing cycle can be significantly streamlined because of productivity solutions, thanks to workflow automation. This means less exposure to the costs of human error and more efficient timelines.

Our Manufacturing-Specific Managed Services

At Blue Technologies, our managed manufacturing services include all four categories covered above. However, we also pride ourselves on taking a custom approach to each of our clients. This means that we never recommend any of our services until we first have an opportunity to asses a company’s current operation. This also means looking at the types of challenges they regularly face, like:

• Threats to information security
• Process bottlenecks
• Wasteful overhead

Only then will we proceed to design your best-fit solution, a process that is always undertaken independently of manufacturers. Best of all, our services are all guaranteed.

Ready to Leverage the Many Benefits of Managed Services?

Since 1995, we’ve offered managed print services, hardware, IT solutions, and productivity improvements to manufacturing companies just like yours.

To learn more about our organization’s unique approach and what it could do for the future of your business, please contact us today.