Are you tired of dealing with manual errors when encoding orders? Are you frustrated by the hassle caused by Excel sheets and handwritten notes? Do you notice gaps in communication between sales and production departments disrupting your operations? Does it hold back your glass processing business? As you face these issues and try to find ways to solve them, you wonder whether you should upgrade your glass processing system or not.
At Synerglass-Soft, we are deeply engaged in the world of SME glass processors as we collaborate closely with them. We often find ourselves on-field to install software for their businesses. Wheter by assisting them throughout their decision-making process for an ERP or during software installation projects in their factories, we have our fair share of experience assisting glass processors.
Through these interactions, we discovered that there was a common thread: a need for solutions designed specifically to help smaller businesses like glaziers, craftsmen, and SMEs manage their operations more effectively.
This article aims to share our honest field experience about what we have witnessed with various customers in the past and what made them switch to an integrated IT system. By sharing this information, we want to help you assess your own needs and determine whether it is time for you to upgrade your glass processing system or not.
In this article, you will discover:
- The top 6 reasons that led SME glass processors to move to an integrated system
- Guidance for your next steps if, at the end of this article, you feel like you need to switch
Why upgrading your glass processing system
Here are the six reasons we came across in our discussions with small glass processing companies.
Reason 1: You want to rely on one single source of truth
If you are used to wasting time searching for misplaced files, juggling multiple Excel sheets, or losing essential data in different systems, you may want to switch to an upgraded glass processing system. Indeed, upgrading your glass processing system can contribute to avoiding scattered data and inefficiencies: everything you need is on one centralized platform.
Imagine a scenario where your sales team is trying to track the status of an order for a customer:
“Today, for your sales team to answer your customers about the order status, location, and delivery date, this means going to the factory, where they have to look after the information needed from production. This often results in loss of information and fragmented sharing of information among various software platforms.”
Going paperless and having centralized information in one single software leaves all of that in the past.
“Your sales team can log on to the software from their desks and instantly access real-time updates on order status, production schedules, and delivery times. No more running around or relying on doubtful information: everyone is working from the same reliable source of truth.”
What’s more, with all your data securely stored in one place, you no longer have to worry about lost files or outdated information. From orders encoding to delivery, going through production, and invoicing, everything is organized in one place.
Reason 2: You need to ensure compliance with industry standards and processes
In the glass industry, there are a lot of industry standards and processes to comply with. Whether international standards such as ISO, European standards such as EN, or national standards such as CEKAL in France, ASTM in the USA, IS for India, or even specific production processes (e.g: IG, laminated or tempered glass), the list is long and complex.
These standards lead to various aspects of glass processing, including safety, quality, and environmental impact. For glass processors, following and complying with all these standards can be a daunting task, but it is an inevitable one.
With the right software, these rules are not only remembered, they are enforced. This implies avoiding errors in production that would force you to send glass back to production, making you lose material and money in the process. In addition, demonstrating compliance with industry standards places your business as a reliable and trustworthy partner in the glass processing industry.
Let’s take a closer look at a practical example. If we take the rules regarding hole placements in tempered glass:
“To be able to drill holes in tempered glass without breaking it, you need the holes to be placed at a distance from the edge of the glass that is at least twice as large as the thickness of this glass.
For example, if you are dealing with 4 mm thick glass, any holes must be at least 8 mm from the edge to prevent it from breaking. The software takes this into account and guides the user through hole placement.”
Reason 3: You want to integrate with production machines
Before making the decision to switch, many SMEs and glaziers were faced with major issues related to the production floor. Frequent errors due to manual re-encoding of data and many other inefficiencies and errors were common. For instance, they struggled to check machine constraints when entering orders, leading to uncertainty about what could and could not be produced in their factories. These are issues they were able to address by moving to an integrated IT tool.
Indeed, integrating your glass processing system with production machines opens up a world of possibilities for optimization by:
- Making your machines respect specific technical, mathematical, or feasibility constraints and therefore knowing what can be produced and what cannot be
- Ensuring that every piece of information entered into the system is correct and reliable.
- Eliminating the need to re-enter information, which reduces the risk of errors and improves accuracy
- Sending specific instructions to machines
- Giving access to detailed machine information and statistics, such as the number of glass pieces produced or what remains in the production queue
- Tracking each order in real time
- Monitoring every asset of production, all from your digital dashboard
Let’s take a closer look at three of the issues related to the production floor:
You want to automate data entry
One of the top issues that made SMEs go for an integrated IT system is the possibility to directly transfer data to machines without re-encoding. Let me share a business case we had with one of the SMEs we were working with:
“A busy glass processing workshop was running at full capacity as orders were flying in and the pressure was on to deliver top-quality products on time. In the middle of this, a significant customer submitted an order with specific shapes, dimensions, and features, requesting next-day delivery. Initially, the order was noted down on paper. However, when it came time to cut the glass, the order details had to be re-entered into the cutting table software, line by line.
At that point, they wished they could automatically send the order data to the cutting table. Without a glass processing system, it is a different story.”
By switching to an ERP system, they could enter the orders into the system once and use it throughout the whole production process. This allowed for reducing errors and speeding up the workflow.
You want to check machine technical constraints
The software also acts as an error checker at various stages of the glass processing process. It prevents from entering customer orders that are not producible in the factory by checking dimensions and other parameters related to the technical constraints of your machines. It takes into account the capacities and limitations of your machines and checks whether the dimensions and specifications of an order are feasible.
This error detection enables you to spot and rectify errors at the point of entry, rather than discovering them later on the cutting table, where making changes becomes time-consuming. By taking into account the technical constraints of your machines, the software ensures that only feasible orders are processed, saving time and reducing waste.
Reason 4: You want to avoid human errors
While working closely with SMEs in the glass processing industry, we have frequently encountered the frustration caused by encoding errors and the headaches resulting from double encoding or manual mistakes. Whether it is inputting glass dimensions or processing customer orders, manual errors can be both costly and time-consuming.
Automating processes and checking data accuracy in real-time is a game-changer for your business:
- You can catch and prevent manual mistakes once and for all before they even happen.
- You enter data only once, and it is available to be reused for anything, at every step of the process.
Let me give you a scenario to explain it in more detail:
“Indeed, an encoder enters the dimensions of a new order, targeting a 350 mm x 600 mm glass panel, but mistakenly enters an extra zero, resulting in a dimension of 350 mm x 6000 mm. This error implies producing dimensions that a standard factory, with its traditional cutting tables, cannot handle. Fortunately, the software detects that your cutting table is unable to produce such glass, and prevents the order from going into production”.
Minimizing the risk of errors not only saves you valuable time, it allows you to produce and deliver the right glass to the right customers with confidence, knowing that your data is error-free and your business is reliable.
Reason 5: you need to monitor your scrap rate
As a glass processor, keeping a close eye on your scrap rate is probably one of your main focuses. You want to make sure that this percentage is as low as possible, especially with rising prices of raw materials and increasing market pressures. Whether you calculate your scrap rate manually or rely on a basic optimization tool, integrating an advancedoptimization algorithm directly into your software can make a significant difference.
Firstly, it simplifies the daunting task of calculating scrap rates by yourself, saving you valuable time and effort. The software can manage a multitude of parameters, such as glass types, plate and batch sizes, and even the number of glass racks behind the cutting table. Thus, the software optimization algorithm delivers more accurate optimization results and significantly reduces scrap rates.
In addition, this allows you to have direct access to the average optimization percentage and can adjust your selling prices accordingly. This ensures that you maintain a healthy margin on every order and every product.
Reason 6: you are planning for scalability and growth
As a business owner, growing your operations is probably one of your top priorities. It is not always easy to know where to start, and how to plan for growth while the rush of day-to-day operations is constant and prevents you from focusing on planning the future. Many SME glass processors have experienced this. They invested in integrated software because they knew their old systems would limit them in their will to expand. They wanted software that would grow with them, guaranteeing their long-term success.
Let me list out the scenarios where SMEs considered moving to an integrated scalable software:
- Expand business and new product ranges, such as fire-resistant or low-emissivity glass
- New markets
- New sorting center
- New production hall
- New machinery, such as a tempering furnace
- New production lines, such as insulated glass (IG) line
- New users
- …
As you expand your operations and explore new opportunities, having a software solution that can evolve with you is helpful. No matter how your business needs to evolve, an integrated system will support your company’s growth at every stage, all within a single, adaptable software.
What if you decide to switch?
Upgrading your glass processing system might be a big step and get you wondering what you need to do.
Now that you are aware of the top six reasons for upgrading your glass processing system, here are a couple of steps you can take to start this journey:
Step 1: Assess your current situation
Start by carrying out an assessment of your current situation and identifying pain points and areas for improvement.
We have helped companies globally to assess their software landscape and make recommendations. We can help you see through this with our assessment guide. Send an email to info@synerglass-soft.com to request an assessment for your comapny. Our experts can help you.
Step 2: Explore available solutions on the market
Explore the different software solutions that are available on the market, such as StarterPro, as well as other options, to determine which best suits your company’s specific needs and objectives.
Step 3: Make a decision and start seeing improvements in your business
Make a decision based on your company’s needs and your current situation. Once you have chosen a solution, it will allow you to gather more insights and drive better results for your company.
Remember, upgrading your glass processing system is not just a one-time event, it is an ongoing journey towards continuous improvement and innovation for your company.
As you are well aware, the glass processing industry is changing rapidly, and staying ahead of the curve is essential to success. But among all this change, one thing stands still: you are the expert in your company’s needs. By knowing the top six reasons to upgrade your glass processing system, you have the information you need to make an informed decision on whether to take the plunge or not.