A few weeks back the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) updated its Food Fraud database, including a concerning number of new cases on the list. 800 instances of fraud were added, which was up significantly from the 1,300 recorded between 1980 and 2010. The nearly 60% increase put some of the staples we regularly consume into focus: milk, vegetable oils, spices, fish, wine, and more.

Adverse food safety events can have disastrous effects on branding and profitability. As information today can go viral in a matter of hours, companies in the Food and Beverage (F&B) industry are faced with increasing pressures to operate seamlessly, with little or no room for error. 

The convergence of corporate IT and software capabilities is a major catalyzing factor in today’s shift toward enterprise-wide manufacturing operations management. LNS Research has a strong interest in this topic, as we’ve previously noted on the importance of taking a global approach to optimizing manufacturing operations.

I recently had the pleasure of attending and speaking at the SAP Manufacturing Forum in Newtown Square Pennsylvania on April 3rd and 4th. The event was an intimate one, with a strong showing of sponsoring implementation partners as well as key customers presenting success stories.

Terminology can be confusing in the software industry, especially if you are just starting out. Unfortunately, this observation holds true for software in the manufacturing industry. Hopefully, for those trying to actively learn more about the industry, we can help to clear up some of the confusion with this post.

There are many different definitions floating around the industry for Manufacturing Operations Management. This is an area that we will be conducting multiple research projects in for 2012, so we thought it would be worthwhile to start the year off by defining what we mean when we write about Manufacturing Operations Management.

We are very excited to be delivering this first blog post. It means we are well on our way to launching LNS Research and changing the way executives percieve and use industry research.