Help desk software for manufacturing industries

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The role of ITSM in modern manufacturing

Over the past few years, the manufacturing industry has seen rapid digitization to improve production techniques with smart manufacturing technology. Propelled by Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0, manufacturers are moving away from archaic and disparate manufacturing systems to digitally transformed manufacturing with connected smart manufacturing systems that take advantage of advanced technology, like IoT, AI, ML, and big data.

This constant trend of digitization has driven manufacturers to adopt smart equipment and software that are connected to the larger IT environment to measure equipment health automatically and proactively flag anomalies. IT infrastructure now plays a bigger role in manufacturing, and it's vital that the IT team stay on top of IT incidents to eliminate manufacturing downtime.

An ITSM solution ties things together and gives manufacturers a strong foundation to establish effective ITSM practices to manage IT infrastructure in an organized, structured way. Additionally, it helps manufacturers streamline service delivery for users and provide a good user experience, something that was often neglected. Delivering services to employees and other end users on time improves employee productivity and keeps customers loyal, which in turn helps manufacturers achieve better margins in increasingly competitive spaces.

5 ITSM challenges that manufacturing companies may face:

Disorganized ITSM operations that increase manufacturing overhead

Merely adopting a ticketing system cannot transform ITSM and help reduce overhead. A complete restructure of ITSM operations and implementing core ITSM practices are required to overhaul ITSM operations and realize gains. Without a structured ITSM solution, the IT teams of manufacturing companies struggle to implement core ITSM practices and tailor them to the company's needs. The lack of core ITSM practices affects the IT team's ability to:

Respond to and resolve incidents quickly to reduce manufacturing downtime.
Identify problem equipment and perform RCA to discover underlying issues and prevent similar incidents in the future.
Provide a list of services available to employees and deliver them on time to increase employee productivity.
Manage and track company assets to optimize asset spending.

This is further exacerbated by the lack of a digital workspace for technicians to track tickets assigned to them and resolve them according to service-level agreements (SLAs).

A poor user experience that undermines manufacturing efforts

While production kept getting better with smart manufacturing trends, end-user support was neglected with old-fashioned systems that provided poor user experiences that indirectly affected production through subpar service delivery for employees and strained relationships with vendors, suppliers, and customers.

With the trend of digitization, manufacturers needed a single point of access for end users to access services; this helps streamline service delivery to each user group, for example:

Employees:

Fixing workstations, addressing HR- and payroll-related issues, and processing applications for time off

Vendors and suppliers:

Tracking purchase orders, flagging product or order issues, and managing product recalls

Customers:

Responding to product questions, warranty claims, or requests for replacement and spare parts

Help desk software for manufacturing companies

Leveraging automations to improve margins

Manufacturing companies are constantly on the look out for ways to automate processes on the factory floor and improve operational efficiency. Similarly, adopting automation to accelerate ITSM operations helps improve margins by reducing resolution time and manufacturing downtime.

Useful ITSM automations like automatic ticket assignment, notifications, and ticket workflows accelerate processes and free up technicians to work on more critical tasks that can improve productivity. Without automations, technicians need to spend precious time manually performing mundane operations, leading to increased technician costs and lower profit margins.

Help desk software for manufacturing industries

Lack of organized data to make informed decisions

Data management is a huge challenge for modern manufacturing companies, and the lack of organized data makes it hard to generate useful insights. The dynamic nature of the industrial landscape makes it vital for manufacturing companies to constantly make informed decisions like increasing support personnel, optimizing asset usage or tweaking ITSM processes to increase efficiency, and identifying inefficient processes. A good reporting system helps manufacturing companies evaluate their ITSM operations and realign them with business objectives. Without a strong reporting system, manufacturing companies are unable to gauge key service desk metrics and identify process inefficiencies.

Adopting new technology

To thrive in highly competitive spaces, manufacturing companies need to adopt new technology or upgrade their existing infrastructure to keep with the latest industry trends. This requires significant changes to their IT infrastructure, changes that must be carefully deployed to prevent unintended collateral damage to other IT infrastructure components.

A streamlined change management process and a CMDB help IT teams carefully plan low-risk changes with a bird's-eye view of IT infrastructure and successfully implement changes with the necessary permissions while keeping stakeholders in the loop. In the absence of a change management process, IT teams struggle to plan and implement low-risk changes.

The ServiceDesk Plus advantage

ServiceDesk Plus gives your manufacturing company the full-stack ITSM experience to support the manufacturing process and auxiliary activities with industry best practices. From unifying IT data and services for ease of management to overhauling IT and non-IT workflows, ServiceDesk Plus transforms the way manufacturing companies approach service management, reducing overhead and improving their bottom line.

Establish an ITSM strategy that covers the entire gamut of IT service management for manufacturing.

Streamline internal support for faster resolution

Adopt a high-velocity service desk model based on industry best practices to provide rapid support for IT infrastructure and employees. Leverage out-of-the-box core ITSM practices to accelerate support efforts.

Enable multi-channel incident reporting for faster incident detection.
Log tickets from monitoring tools proactively with strategic integrations.
Craft workflows and guide technicians through the ticket life cycle by building custom request life cycles on a visual canvas.
Establish SLAs and ensure timely resolutions with multi-level escalations, both proactive and reactive.
Set up preventive maintenance to automatically schedule tickets in order to maintain equipment and critical software.
Perform root cause analysis for recurring issues using problem management.

Deliver excellent user support across business functions

Supplement manufacturing efforts with high-quality service delivery to improve the user experience, employee productivity, and customer relations and thrive in highly competitive markets.

Extend IT service desk best practices to other departments, like HR, payroll, or health and safety, with enterprise service management to establish a consistent user experience across departments.
Set up unique service desk instances with comprehensive service catalogs to present the services offered by each business function.
Construct a unified digital platform using the self-service portal to support employees, vendors, suppliers, and customers with high service delivery standards.
Build workflows to establish standard operating procedures for different service categories and improve efficiency.

IT service desk instances for manufacturing

IT change and project management for manufacturing

Incorporate new technology with ease using changes and projects

Eliminate the risk involved with upgrading IT infrastructure and reduce costs with well-planned, low-risk changes.

Adopt an eight-stage change management process to plan and implement impactful changes.
Configure automations for every step in the change workflow, such as approvals, notifications, and field updates.
Build change workflows on a visual drag-and-drop canvas to establish standard operating procedures for minor, major, and emergency changes.
Leverage project management to implement large-scale changes with ease.

Implement an ITAM strategy to manage IT and non-IT assets

Discover and map all IT and non-IT infrastructure distributed across sites. Keep tabs on assets throughout their life cycle and optimize asset usage across the company.

Discover and scan all IT and non-IT assets and collate asset data under one roof.
Map key services and asset relationships with a comprehensive CMDB to gain a better understanding of your IT infrastructure.
Optimize asset usage and reduce costs.
Configure depreciation rates to track the value of machinery and assets over time.
Map incidents to assets to identify problem assets with recurring issues.
Be audit-ready at all times with real-time dashboards that monitor the compliance status of assets.

Collect key operational metrics to improve margins

Enable data-driven decision-making with metrics that give insight into the various IT processes and their effectiveness.

Choose from more than 180 out-of-the-box reports to gather key ITSM insights.
Create custom reports on an intuitive report builder to identify problem machinery or assets, maintenance costs of machinery, production downtime, incident trends of each manufacturing site, or recurring issues raised by customers.
Schedule automatic reports to track key metrics and keep key stakeholders in the loop.
Glean real-time data with custom graphical dashboards and widgets.

Promote proactive maintenance with a connected service desk

Make the service desk the centerpiece of your IT management strategy. Reconcile data from other IT management applications proactively and trigger tickets in the service desk. Expand the capabilities of your service desk with powerful native integrations with ManageEngine solutions and third-party software.

ManageEngine OpManager: Reduce response time to network faults by converting network alerts into service desk tickets.
ManageEngine Endpoint Central (formerly Desktop Central): Perform endpoint management and take control of remote IT assets right from within a ticket.
ManageEngine Password Manager Pro: Manage user privilege and access to critical functions to ensure maximum compliance.
ManageEngine Applications Manager: Monitor critical applications and keep IT technicians informed about app and server anomalies.
Enable API integration between ServiceDesk Plus and other applications and exchange data seamlessly.

IT native integrations for manufacturing

Support manufacturing efforts with a strong service management culture

With ServiceDesk Plus, establish a strong ITSM foundation that cultivates a culture of rapid resolution and high-quality service delivery that leverages industry best practices. Transform internal and external support to support manufacturing efforts and realize bigger gains, all while spending a fraction of your budget for improving production techniques. Higher productivity and profitability, less unplanned downtime, and more satisfied employees and loyal customers—it's all possible with ServiceDesk Plus.

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How an effective ITSM strategy helps manufacturing companies realize gains