How Service Management Capabilities Will Reduce Your Manufacturing Operating Costs

Like many other businesses, manufacturing organizations constantly battle to reduce costs and improve margins and profitability. As part of this fight, manufacturing organizations can employ IT service management (ITSM) tool capabilities and service management best practices to help. However, it’s important to appreciate that the opportunities for manufacturing organizations to benefit extend beyond using ITSM tool capabilities and service management best practices for IT service delivery and support.

This use case is merely the first two of four discrete opportunities for your manufacturing organization to benefit. These opportunities relate to the following:

1. The IT employed in manufacturing operations and other business functions
2. The IT used by manufacturing and “supporting staff”
3. Manufacturing processes and equipment use
4. Other business functions that enable manufacturing processes.

For example, the knowledge management capabilities enabled by an ITSM tool can be used to improve across all four of these opportunities. Plus, it’s essential to recognize that service management capabilities encompass all three of people, processes, and technology, not just the ITSM tool.

In this blog @SysAid looks at the opportunity for #ITSM tools and best practices to benefit manufacturing organizations, including reducing costs, improving processes, and improving other lines of business outside of IT. #manufacturing… Share on X

1 – Manufacturing-organization IT

This is the “bread and butter” opportunity for service management capabilities, particularly ITSM. A raft of ITSM best practices, enabled by a fit-for-purpose ITSM tool, will help deliver “better, faster, cheaper” IT service delivery and support.

For example, reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) and the performance of the IT employed in manufacturing operations, including the technology used by the other business functions needed for the manufacturing organization as a whole to function. This opportunity can involve a variety of service management capabilities and the ITSM tool. For instance, best practice service management capabilities related to:

• Supplier management
• Incident management
• Asset management
• Service financial management
• Availability management
• Capacity and performance management
• Service continuity management
• Measurement and reporting
• Continual improvement.

ITSM offers a wealth of opportunities to reduce your manufacturing operating costs, whether related to IT service delivery & support, manufacturing ops, or the ops & outcomes of other business functions. This @SysAid blog explores. #ITSM… Share on X

2 – Employee IT

While the previous section covered the technology or IT services used in manufacturing operations and its enabling business functions, there are also cost and performance benefits related to the employee use of IT, i.e. their “personal IT.” This opportunity includes manufacturing employees but also covers the “supporting staff” in other business functions. These employees are outside of manufacturing operations but whose work enables manufacturing operations.

While many of the same ITSM capabilities listed above are used for optimized “personal IT” service delivery, the corporate IT support capabilities are often more likely to be engaged relative to employee, rather than operational, technology needs. Here, ITSM tool capabilities can speed up support and remove manual effort to make a difference in manufacturing operating costs. For example, workflow automation, service catalogs, self-service, knowledge bases, automation and service orchestration capabilities (including artificial intelligence (AI) opportunities), reporting and analytics capabilities, and integrations with other tools and systems. Whether an employee needs assistance or the provision of new technical capabilities, these ITSM tool capabilities deliver what’s needed more quickly and at a lower cost.

Specific ITSM tool capability IT use cases can also be extended to assist manufacturing and supporting staff. For example, field service management capabilities for the more effective scheduling and routing of mobile staff. Whether the management of equipment maintenance staff or traveling sales personnel, it allows them to be more time-effective and cost-efficient.

This @SysAid blog looks at how #ITSM tool capabilities can speed up support and remove manual effort to make a difference in manufacturing operating costs. #ServiceDesk #Manufacturing Share on X

3 – Process and equipment-related improvements

This opportunity has two elements – service management capabilities to better enable manufacturing processes (per the fourth opportunity below) and better manage manufacturing equipment.

The first of these, the improvement of manufacturing operations, including cost reductions, can be considered alongside the enterprise service management or digital enablement opportunities for all business functions detailed in the next section.

For the second element, ITSM practices and technology can be used to better manage the manufacturing equipment lifecycle (including IT asset management capabilities). For example, if a piece of manufacturing equipment is network-connected, it can be managed as per any IT asset. Whether this is availability and performance monitoring, applying patches, remote remediation, asset management, or even the use of preventative maintenance practices. If a piece of manufacturing equipment isn’t network connected, it can also be subject to service management practices such as asset management and the use of related data to drive preventative maintenance.

Using best practices and a fit-for-purpose ITSM tool extends the benefits of ITSM to your manufacturing organization’s processes and equipment. Which not only reduces operating costs but also:

• Increases productivity
• Improves operational efficiency and effectiveness
• Offers better performance visibility
• Improves governance and control
• Leverages standardization.

Using best practices and a fit-for-purpose ITSM tool in your manufacturing organization increases productivity, reduces costs, improves governance & control, & offers better performance reliability. This blog explains. #ITSM #ServiceDesk… Share on X

3 – Other business function improvement

In the same way that the IT organization and its IT service delivery and support capabilities are a manufacturing enabler and overhead, so are other business functions such as human resources (HR), finance, legal, procurement, facilities, sales and marketing, and customer services. Hence, improving business function operations and outcomes positively affects manufacturing performance and costs.

Enterprise service management is “the use of ITSM capabilities by other business functions to improve their operations, services, experiences, and outcomes.” This includes service management principles, best practices, and enabling technology. For example, ITSM self-service capabilities that have been introduced to empower employees to access assistance and new services can also be used by other business functions. Whether a manufacturing employee is working within a manufacturing operations process or engaging with HR, self-service and back-end knowledge or automation can be used for speedier solutions, lower-cost transactions, and better employee experiences.

Service management offers a wealth of opportunities to reduce your manufacturing operating costs, whether related to IT service delivery and support, manufacturing operations, or the operations and outcomes of other business functions. If you would like to learn more, please get in touch.