Development and Implementation of Production Planning / Management Systems in a SME

Overall Project Objectives:

  • Design & implement new production management systems.
  • Train staff and provide support for new system.

Achievements To Date:

  • Designed and implemented a multi-user Projects Diary tool (middle bottom) – tracks activity and actions required.
  • Designed and implemented an online Supply Chain Management module to assist Production Planning (far right) – benefits include: higher quality and more timely information for Planning and reduced time spent expediting parts.
  • Initiated the Weekly Progress Meeting between Production, Planning and Engineering – improved quality and speed of communication between departments resulting in smoother Project flow and early warning of potential problems to allow pre-emptive action.
  • Performance measurement specification framework developed (below).
  • Report of 61 suggestions for improvement presented to Directors over 50 of which have been approved for actioning.
  • Hands-on experience in role of Production Manager.
  • Paper presented at the International Conference of Manufacturing Research 2003 - “Impact and effectiveness of a change agent in the development of the operations systems in an SME”.

Online Supply Chain Management Module:

  • Real time and higher quality communication with key supplier for improved Production Planning and reduced delivery lead times.

Systems Developed and Implemented in 2004:

  1. Development of the ‘Critical Path Scheduler’ that dynamically replans projects based on actual dates past milestones were achieved (left bottom).
  2. Implemented supplier performance analysis functionality to assist management decision-making in respect of key supplier late delivery charges (top middle).
  3. Development and implementation of a performance measurement framework and intranet reporting system (middle centre).
  4. Development of the www.4ETO.co.uk website which is becoming a portal for engineer to order companies and also offers a fast, novel and very cost-effective method of MRP / ERP system selection for manufacturers (middle bottom).

1. Critical Path Scheduler:

2. Key Supplier Performance Measurement:

  • Amicably agreed contract put in place between Saftronics and key supplier: Supplier paid a higher rate for product but if they delivered late they would be subject to late deliveries charges.
  • System calculates the difference between the Order Date and the Delivery Date of each part of a job and where the gap is greater than the agreed turn around time of 2 weeks the potential chargeback is calculated as follows: £100 + 1% contract value per day late.
  • Management provided with additional info and drilldowns to aid decision-making about applying the charges.
    All potential charge-backs are calculated and a month by month summary bar chart is calculated and displayed.
  • All potential charge-backs are calculated and a month by month summary bar chart is calculated and displayed.

3. Performance Measurement Framework:

  • All people on the intranet are able to view the performance measures in dynamically created bar chart format.
  • Mousing over a recorded measure on a bar chart displays the notes associated with that particular measure (i.e. so exceptions can be explained.
  • ‘Owners’ of measures are able to add new measure values and to redefine certain aspects of the measure such as Measurement Frequency, Target and so on.

4. 4ETO: Engineer-to-Order Portal Website:

  • All people on the intranet are able to view the performance measures in dynamically created bar chart format.
  • Mousing over a recorded measure on the bar chart displays the notes associated with that particular measure (i.e. so exceptions can be explained.
  • ‘Owners’ of measures are able to add new measure values and to redefine certain aspects of the measure such as Measurement Frequency, Target and so on.
  • Domain name & web hosting provided by www.me-too.net

ETO and ERP Software Packages
4ETO:
4engineer to order manufacturer manufacturing production planning project management ERP system EDM PDMETO Home Page
Contact 4engineer to order manufacturer manufacturing production planning project management ERP system EDM PDMETO
ERP:
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Papers & Articles:
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