The plant floor has focused more on manufacturing quality, optimizing production processes and productivity, and less on customer demand. Sophisticated controllers, other intelligent devices, LANs and MESes all collect data that could be used for marketing or customer service, but those data rarely cross the plant floor to an ERP, which may or may not be capable of processing that data. Crater said manufacturers need to see this transformation as inevitable or they risk going out of business. E-business customers are demanding more customized products, faster delivery schedules and instant access to order status.
Manufacturers stand to benefit too.
Things like that actually lend themselves to e-business effects.