Other neat blogs

As part of our work here, we've been assigned doing research into various topics of interest to manufacturing organizations. My topic is Total Quality Management (TQM). I know what I think of when I hear the term TQM, but I'll be looking at what it means in general. And as I delve deeper into it, I'll post more articles about TQM. So far there's only the welcome page, and a page about what the terms Total, Quality, and Management are in general. Obviously future pages will need to look at TQM in much more detail.

One of my co-workers has created a neat blog dealing with open source software. Already there are 4 or 5 pages discussing the benefits of open source software, open source ERP, open source MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems).

Another neat blog is about ASP. In our industry we sometimes have a single term that can mean quite a few different things, depending upon context. To Microsoft, ASP can mean Active Server Pages. To IBM, it can mean Assigned Storage Pool or Auxilary Storage Pool. It can also mean Application Service Providers, and that's what this blog is about. Other terms used for ASP in this context are Saas (Software-as-a-Service), Web Delivered, and Browser-Based.

The last blog handles Production Scheduling software.

Please feel free to check out each of these blogs, and also please post some feedback to let us know what you think of them.

Thanks,
Hal Hamer

Advanced Scheduling Software

Scheduling production optimally can dramatically affect a manufacturing plant’s efficiency. Using paper or Excel spreadsheets may work in a small facility, but as a business grows planning an effective schedule requires more advanced technology. Even the best schedulers may miss opportunities that an intelligent program is able to discover. By including Artificial Intelligence to optimize the schedule based on each plant’s specifications, Advanced Scheduling Software offers a clear advantage over alternative scheduling methods.

Most software options allow one to organize their schedule, but force the user to conform to the software company’s idea of how to schedule production. A simple system provides administrative screens, along with a gannt chart of other graphical interface which can be used to visualize the schedule. But which information is displayed and what color coding options are included? Most "out-of-the-box"/"off-the-shelf" software makes these decisions without the user’s input, making the system less intuitive than a custom system. Custom software has its own problems. Usually expensive, custom software generally takes at least one year to create, then months to change when changes are required. But an interface that user-friendly and only displays pertinent information is essential to optimizing a production schedule. Also, upgrades usually require a completely new system. A tailored, system with a model-driven architecture which will allow for quick and easy upgrades is the best choice.

Agile software that includes AI offers the advanced functionality that provides the best cost-benefit. Less expensive than custom software, but capable of all the same advanced functionality, tailored software bridges the gap between generic and custom software. Off-the-Shelf software seems simple, but because of it’s simplicity, it can not provide the flexibility that a configured system offers. Arranging and executing the best schedules in a unique manufacturing environment requires a flexible, Advanced Planning System.

Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP)

Today's blog will briefly introduce the topic of Manufacturing Resource Planning. More detailed discussions will be included in future blogs.

MRP is defined by APICS (The Association for Operations Management, formerly known as the American Production and Inventory Control Society) as a method for the effective planning of all resources of a manufacturing company.

Ideally, the plan should address operational planning in terms of units (how many do we need) and financial planning in terms of dollars (how much will it cost). To do this it needs to answer questions such as:

• Are there enough resources (labor, machines, machine-hours, and cash) to meet the material requirements plan?
• Is there enough capacity, both overall and at each individual Work Center?

The ultimate output of this production plan will be the finished goods that are needed. In order to get to that state, a schedule of requirements for the subassemblies, the component parts, and the raw materials needed to produce those finished goods, and to produce them according to a specific time frame, is needed.

MRP’s major benefits should be:

• an increase in productivity;
• the removal of inefficiencies, or at least a major reduction in them;
• and an increase in customer responsiveness and service.

Simply put, MRP systems ask four questions:

• What is needed?
• Wow much is needed?
• When is it needed?
• How can I best use my resouces to meet the answers to the previous 3 questions?

MRP can be a semi stand-alone system, or it can be part of the larger ERP, and is directly connected to Master Production Scheduling (MPS) and Distribution Requirements Planning (DRP).

This page has a little more information about MRP: things to look for in an MRP system, other systems that tie in with an MRP system, and lots of other links.

---

Have a great weekend. See you all next week.

Hal Hamer

New ERP Sites

I ran across a couple of new manufacturing ERP sites that look quite promising. I think that they'll soon have a lot of very good content. The first one is http://erp-software-solutions.com/. It already has a good section of "News and Views".
The other site is about agile manufacturing systems. And since that's the title of this blog, it's gotta be good. There's not a lot of content there yet, but I'm sure that there will be more in a little while.

Telecommuting

At the end of last week we were supposed to have two large snow storms, one Thursday night and the other Friday afternoon. We ended up with about 4" of snow by Friday morning, so after I finished shovelling out the driveway I decided not to try to come into work. Instead I just logged into our development site, since it's web-based, and used Logmein.com to connect to my work PC. Then I was able to just work from home, without having to worry about the afternoon storm! (And BTW, that afternoon storm never happened - not even hardly a single snowflake.)
Our priority this week is to finish up the CRM and Inventory systems for Stone Interiors. We received copies of a lot of their sales reports and job tracking reports, so we'll have to add them to the list of things to finish this week.