AUBURN HILLS, MI-Plexus Systems Inc., provider of the on-demand manufacturing performance system Plexus Online, is sponsoring a new benchmark report, The Enterprise Value of Plant Floor Visibility, by Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Co.

The report has correlated very specific business capabilities to best-in-class operational performance. For the purposes of this study, Aberdeen has evaluated and classified manufacturers based on five key performance indicators (KPIs): On-time delivery, average number of stock outs, overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), direct material usage variance and throughput. Best-in-class manufacturers are defined as the top 20% of performers in a weighted average across the aforementioned five KPIs; results show that best-in-class manufacturers are:

• 31% more likely than other manufacturers to have integrated plant floor data with enterprise resource planning.
  
• 26% more likely than other manufacturers to be providing plant floor data to executive decision makers.
  
• Four times more likely than other manufacturers to be using manufacturing intelligence.
  
• 40% more likely to have real-time plant floor data capabilities.