Volatility has always been an issue for manufacturing leaders and supply-chain participants. Now, with the effects of COVID-19 still lingering, company leaders are facing new burdens as they struggle with changes wrought by an increasingly remote workforce.

Those companies willing to accelerate technologies to develop the workforce of the future — a bringing together of human-machine interaction; advanced engineering; analytics; and connectivity, data and computational power — are those that will find success as we move into the next year.

Specifically, progressive manufacturing companies will accelerate their adoption of digital workflows and automation to help remotely based teams collaborate successfully with their in-house partners.

Deploying digital solutions allows companies to expand resources outside of the manufacturing plant, providing new and better ways to handle disruptions occurring at production plants, manage operational challenges, and reduce workplace health risks while keeping productivity high.

The Managed Print Solution for Manufacturers

One easy way to leverage the power of digital solutions is to start at the core of business processes: the document level. Reducing dependence on paper-based documents and increasing insight through analytics can help manufacturers succeed in coordinating in-house with remote-acting teams.

Specifically, managed print solutions can help manufacturers create specific advantages, such as:

  1. Speed Information Flow

Getting information to the right people when they need it is critical in any business. This flow is often slowed, or even eliminated, when teams must rely on a paper-heavy system.

Digital document capture allows for thousands of documents including delivery slips, technical documents, invoices, contracts, marketing presentations, and more to be quickly captured, stored, searched, shared, and archived as necessary.

Not only will this digital process reduce time-consuming manual entry of information, it also reduces or eliminates human error.

  1. Enhance Collaboration

Managed print, with its inherent document management and enterprise content management (ECM) solutions, allows teams to collaborate seamlessly through intuitive reporting and tracking capabilities.

Document and content revisions are easily tracked to eliminate confusion over changes and edits and help teams work together more constructively in less time.

Information is available to authorized users when and where they need it, regardless of their location or time zone.

  1. Improve Security

The era of COVID has seen an increase in hacking activity across the board.

Manufacturing businesses saw, on average, an 11% increase in cyberattacks in 2020, possible due to hackers taking advantage of the large-scale disruption of this industry caused by global supply-chain breakdown.

These cyberattacks were typically directed at document-heavy processes, such as front-office operations and business systems and at new infrastructure prompted by the switch to remote work conditions.

A managed print environment will help protect sensitive data through specific security protocols such as automatic data backups, data encryptions, password protection, firewalls, audit and tracking, and other means.

James Imaging Can Help Future-Proof Your Manufacturing Workforce

Manufacturers have been hard-hit by the ongoing COVID pandemic. Not only have they faced significant disruption of supply chain materials, but they have had to revise the way their workforce operates to keep employees safer, moving many of their key team members to remote-work positions.

At James Imaging, we understand the unique challenges posed by the pandemic and how they affect your industry. That is why we have assembled industry-leading technology partners and a team of IT experts to help you successfully transition your workforce to the “new normal.”

Our team will provide an in-depth assessment of your current infrastructure and examine it alongside your business objectives and ongoing challenges.

After analysis, we will begin creating the kind of digital environment that will accelerate your workflows, bring remote and in-house teams together, and provide a firm basis for continued future success.

Your digital framework will be custom-tailored to your company’s unique needs so that it targets employee and management information and communication pain points.

In addition, we will place strict security protocols in place to ensure your sensitive or critical data is protected against theft and loss to reduce vulnerabilities and the chances of cyberattacks and data breaches.

Finally, we will continue to maintain, grow, and serve your system as your needs — or your industry — changes over time.

Future-proof your manufacturing workforce today. Reach out to a professional at James Imaging Systems and learn how our managed print solutions can provide the tools you need for future success.