Today's manufacturing environment is so complex that even a single batch might require dozens of precisely measured ingredients; manual procurement is like taking an unwanted risk when there should not be. Consider a specialty chemical manufacturer we worked with. Before implementing automated procurement through their process manufacturing ERP system, they were losing an average of 4 production days per month due to inventory misalignments. That's nearly 50 days of potential production annually, a staggering figure in an industry where margins are increasingly tight.