-Shashank Nanivadekar
If you have ever said to anyone: "I only have so many hours in a day" or "I only have two hands." or " I can only do so many things at once" then you understand the pain of having a finite capacity.
On the manufacturing floor, every resource is limited in the amount of time they have. Machines, people, materials, and warehouses all have this limitations. These limitations in capacity can become frustrating if you have to keep making changes your schedules. They inevitably lead to shifting delivery dates which leads to angry customers. And angry customers remember.
"If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful."
-Jeff Bezos, Amazon
In a recent webinar, Dassault Systèmes discussed how manufacturers had made improvements in service levels by fixing the way they do scheduling and planning. However, not everyone has an hour in their busy day, so see below for the key highlights from the webinar.
Custom, On-Demand Manufacturing
Manufacturing and processing companies are expanding into different verticals. Customers are getting more and more demanding and everybody wants everything at a moment's notice.. With manufacturing on-demand becoming a popular request to stay competitive and cost effective, manufacturers need to be able to rely on their resources. To be able to do so, an Advanced Planning & Scheduling solution is critical.
Planning and Scheduling Challenges
In addition to product complexities and variances in customer demands, manufacturers face some pretty huge challenges and how you manage them can define your long-term success.
Increase forecast accuracy
Reduce risk exposure in bidding process.
Compress manufacturing cycle times
Manage increased demand complexity and variance
Maximize machine utilization & increase OEE
Schedule "Order of One" products for on-time delivery.
Predict and eliminate bottlenecks
Maintain accurate and adequate inventory
Improve reporting to customers
Planning Impacts Objectives
In the rapid production and prototyping economy, how you plan and schedule operations has a direct impact on your ability to get new products to market faster than your competition. This means running your machines, people, and inventory levels at peak capacities for the entire duration of their shifts.
The New Era of scheduling & planning
Whiteboards and excel dominated the scheduling and planning function for the longest time. ERP software was a big step up from excel because manufacturers could see how many WOs they need to fulfill, how much stock they have, and how many people were working. But what happened when inevitable changes on the shopfloor derailed this schedule? People missing shifts, machines going down, surges in orders, shortage of raw materials, longer lead times. These constraints need to be accounted for and if you aren't, then you're leaving money on the table and room for competition to swoop in.
Success Stories
Customers who have adopted finite-capacity planning and scheduling tools were able to see success in all aspects of their operations.
What-if Simulations
Increase in service levels
Integrated with all existing ERPs/HR/Databases
Reduced machine setup time
Reduced time wastage
Reduced unnecessary inventory
Planning & monitoring of 100% of WOs
Increase in Productivity
ROI < 12 months.
Reduction in process inefficiencies
Better collaboration across all sites
Takeaway
DELMIA Ortems has powerful load levelling and flow synchronization engines that take into account constraints that planners see in real-life in a way that people just can't. It's like playing chess against a supercomputer. The super computer is able to account for factors you haven't even thought of and still win. Wouldn't you like to be able to account for all factors when you do scheduling?
Want to watch the full webinar? Click here to tell us about your scheduling priorities and we will send you the link to the free webinar.