Agile Manufacturing Software

And some more sites

2009-01-21T11:16:00.004-05:00

We're getting close to the end of the survey of good sites that deal with Production Scheduling. There are two more entries for today.

The first is called Master Production Scheduling. There are quite a few articles here. Some of them are: SaaS (Software as a Service), Open Source ROI, and web-based scheduling. There are also links to directories, portals, and some providers.

The other site is Manufacturing Scheduling. Like the site above, there's an article on ROI. Others involve optimizing your planning time and a brief overview of the benefits of a scheduling system.

Still more Scheduling sites to look at

2009-01-19T11:08:00.003-05:00

What a way to start the week! Here are a couple more good sites to look at about Scheduling. The first one has some nice info about producing a realistic manufacturing schedule. Other articles look at the differences that may occur between a scheduling system used for Production and one used for R & D.

The other one for today has a couple of articles on Constraint Based scheduling. There is also a good page about Advanced Planning Software, as well as some dealing with Artificial Intelligence.

That's about all for now. There are still a few more that I should mention, so those will have to be saved for a future date.

Follow-up with some more good Production Scheduleing Sites

2009-01-15T15:43:00.004-05:00

This is just a follow-up post from yesterday with a couple more nice sites dealing with Production Scheduling software. The first one, Capacity Planning, has some nice articles about Artifical Intelligence (AI) and Return On Investment (ROI).

The other one is called Expert Solutions. Some of its articles deal with interesting subject matter like Reducing Carbon Emissions and using Browser based systems to implement agile software solutions.

Production Scheduling Systems

2009-01-14T11:29:00.003-05:00

Throughout the years, we've developed quite a lot of varied Production Scheduling Systems, some using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to further increase the system's productivity. Our range of clients has also been quite broad, going from state and national Government contracts, to TeleCom, to AeroSpace, to Stone Counter shops, to a manufacturer of custom towels.

One of the newer ones deals with Capa (Capable to promise capacity planning solutions). Check the site out. It has lots of new, interesting info for those of us who are looking to the future of Production Planning Systems and Production Planning Software.

Another neat site is one that deals with all aspect of these planning solutions. This site provides an overview with good, basic information.

EDI, Directed Picking, and Dallas

2008-12-18T09:58:00.006-05:00

It's been quite a while since I've had a chance to get back to this blog. Sorry about that. These past few months have been quite hectic - lotta new things going on at work, plus some medical and family issues to handle.

Last night I returned from a trip to a client in Dallas where we were implementing a Warehouse Management System. It's a pretty neat system that'll automatically pull down the orders through EDI. The orders will then sit in a queue until they're accepted (or rejected - but we really don't like to reject orders!). When an order is accepted, it can then be pulled from inventory. We're using a directed picking approach to that step. After it's pulled, it's sent down the line to packing where it's boxed up for shipment. When it's shipped, an invoice is also being created. We're also sending an ASN and Invoice through EDI, and then sending the Invoice info to Great Plains for the accounting backend.

When the inventory level for a product falls too low, we're automatically creating a PO. Like the incoming orders, the PO goes into a queue waiting for approval. When that PO is approved, it'll be sent out, again through EDI.

I flew into Dallas Sunday evening. It had been in the 80s during the day. When I left here, it was around 30. As we were making our final descent, we suddenly pulled back up. The pilot came on and announced that we were going to circle DFW to let the cold front pass through. It was probably around 50 when we landed. The next morning it was around 30 degrees and I had to scrape ice off the windshield! When I left the client's office Monday evening, I had to re-scrape the windshield to remove that afternoon's ice. Tuesday morning was a repeat of Monday morning. Yesterday it finally got up to around 45 there. Dallas' weather forcast for today was back up in the 60s or even 70s. Last night when I returned home, we had around 3 inches of snow. So I must have brought the cold snap with me, and taken it back with me.

Hal Hamer

New Blogs

2008-04-10T08:51:00.003-04:00

I just got back after being off for a week so I thought I'd give you an update on some of the blogs we've been working on. Later on, I'll give you links to some of our sites.

The first one deals with our Company’s Blog.
We also have the following blogs:
Total Quality Management (TQM)
Application Services
Open Source Manufacturing Execution Systesm (MES)
Manufacturing ERP Systems
Production Scheduling
and finally, Key Performance Index (KPI). You'll be hearing a lot more from us about KPI in the future as we're heavily getting into KPI. It's going to become a major force in the manufacturing world.

When you get a chance, please look at these blogs. As we write more content, we’ll certainly let you know when there's an article that might be of particular interest to all of you who are reading this blog about Agile Manufacturing ERP Software and Agile Manufacturing ERP Solutions.

Hal Hamer

Finishing up with CRM

2008-03-11T09:33:00.005-04:00

Well, we're getting much closer to finishing the CRM project for Stone Interiors. They've been importing their live data for further testing, and everything is going well. We're concurrently doing the Inventory system, and have started on the Purchasing system. After that we'll head to the Scheduling system. Here's a link to some info about Scheduling.

For Inventory, each one of the slabs of stone is assigned a unique ID, and we're getting a Thermal Bar Code printer to print that label, using some ZPL. I haven't used ZPL before, but we have a couple of samples that we can test when we get the printer later this afternoon. It'll be fun to see how the ZPL format works.

In a previous post I'd mentioned that I've started a Total Quality Management blog. We also have a nice site dealing with TQM. We also have a blog about Agile Manufacturing Systems.

Other neat blogs

2008-02-25T08:38:00.004-05:00

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

2008-02-15T22:55:00.001-05:00

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)

2008-02-15T08:45:00.010-05:00

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

2008-02-12T09:23:00.000-05:00

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

2008-02-04T09:08:00.000-05:00

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.

Bar Coding

2008-01-31T08:41:00.000-05:00

Today we're working on creating a "Traveller" or "Follower" for a part as it goes through its manufacturing/production process. This "Traveller" is a sheet of paper which will accompany the part to each of the steps/processes it ends up going through. The shop floor can be quite an environmentally unfriendly place for PCs. For instance there is usually a lot of dust which, over time, can affect the cooling fan's ability to cool the PC, thus ultimately leading to its failure. In even more severe environments, even Thin Client systems may not be appropriate. At Princeton Tools, to avoid these problems, they're going to use bar code scanners for their input.
They do custom work on aircraft engine blades and each part that comes into their shop will have aindividual 'shipping list' from the supplier that already has a bar code on it. They'll scan this piece into their ERP production system and then print out the "Traveller", which will have a bar code for each of the processes that this particular part needs to go through. We're going to put a bar code on the "Traveller" for each one of these steps.
While I've worked with bar codes before, I've never actually created the bar code, so this'll be a fun new learning experience for me.

Customer Relation Management

2008-01-29T08:34:00.000-05:00

At Tuppas Software, I spent the last day working on part of our Customer Relation Management (CRM) package for Stone Interiors, a manufacturer of custom countertops. We had a photocopy of one of their "Estimates" which could be printed in one of two ways: either with all of the detail, or just summarized. This Estimate, along with the schematics, is then given to the customer for final approval.
For each Estimate, there are quite a few options available - override pricing, on either an individual line item or for an entire section (such as a kitchen or a bathroom); discounts, either a flat amount or a percentage, some items being charged by the square foot, others by the inch, and still others by the piece; different price groups; etc.
Since our CRM solutions and CRM systems are thin-client, web based, we're using ASP to display a copy of the estimate before printing it. So it was a challenge to blend the HTML, ASP, and CSS together to produce the Estimate, to get all of the formatting and layout to match their existing estimate. I have to get back in touch with Chad at Stone to go over it, but it's now quite close.
At the end of yesterday I was given some changes to their Inventory System and was able to make most of them then. The rest I'll be working on today, along with MES Systems for other clients. More later. Until then.
Hal Hamer

Why Should I Look at Thin Clients

2008-01-25T09:22:00.001-05:00

In the right environments/situations, Thin Clients can be quite beneficial from a cost and performance point of view. In the wrong situation, well... This paper will look at various reasons why someone might want to consider using Thin Clients in some situations instead of using Thick Clients.

Advantages

Costs

Hardware

Since a Thin Client does not contain a disk drive or fan, and needs less application memory, Thin Client hardware is less expensive, thus saving on initial cost.
In most cases a Thin Client terminal can remain in service for a longer period of time before being replaced, thus saving on replacement cost.
In addition to saving on replacement costs, reducing the need to constantly replace hardware also saves on the disposal cost, both to the company and to the environment.
Less network bandwidth. No longer are large files being transferred from server to client. All of the work is done on the server.

Software

Since each Thin Client uses a centrally stored application/program, it does not need each application/program to be installed on its box.

Energy Consumption

Less powerful hardware requires less energy to operate.
It's also possible that with less energy consumption, a less expensive air-conditioning system may be appropriate.

Administration

No more money spent on having a tech physically update each machine with hardware and software.

Security

Data

Sensitive data is more secure since that data is stored at the server, which will be more protected and in a securer environment, instead of the desktop which is much less secure. This would help not only with problems of theft, but also in those cases where the thick client failed or was damaged.

MalWare, SpyWare, Viruses

Since there is no hard drive, there is no OS on that hard drive which can be compromised with malware, spyware, or viruses

Performance

Hostile Environments

Since there is no need for a fan, Thin Clients can be put on the shop floor without having to worry that dust will accumulate on the fan blades and ultimately cause the system to fail.
Also without fans, the system is noticably quieter.

As with most things in life, there are advantages and disadvantages. Situations where a Thin Client does not work are limited, but they do include using applications where:

a high bandwidth is necessary (for multimedia performance)
the OS is designed for the use of local, and not network, resources
poor network connections

Some places where Thin Clients can be used include the following:

Why Choose Software-as-a-Service ERP Software?

2008-01-23T08:53:00.000-05:00

One of the key advantages of choosing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is that companies can save considerable amounts of money by not having to provide the on-premise IT support infrastructure. For a monthly fee companies can get the software they need much faster than outright purchasing it. Many of these trends are evident in the continued growth of companies choosing SaaS ERP systems. There is a much less upfront expense and more flexibility in licensing terms, as far as the customers not buying more licenses than they actually need, when choosing a SaaS ERP system that's right for them.

The ease of getting the software you need now at the price you can afford is one of the many advantages of choosing your SaaS. However, one thing to keep in mind when considering if a SaaS ERP system is right for you is that the ongoing monthly expense never ends and you don't ever own the software. To many companies, never actually owning the software isn't a problem because they are getting what they need on a pay-as-you-go-basis without being locked into a long-term agreement.

Some of the benefits of SaaS

Easy use and set-up

Predictable monthly ongoing expense

Mobility in it web-based applications

The vendor manages the servers, backs up the data and updates the application for customers

Less upfront costs and many times long-term as well. Thin client systems can drastically reduce the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).

Although, SaaS might not be the solution for every business dilemma, when properly chosen it can allow for companies to save time, money and grief. When considering a SaaS ERP system do your homework to make sure that the company that you choose can provide your company with what it needs for optimum usability. Some early proven leaders in providing SaaS are Tuppas Software and Salesforce.

Copyright 2008
Written by Hal Hamer

Day 2

2008-01-18T14:01:00.000-05:00

Hello, it's me again, Hal Hamer, back for another day of programming at Tuppas Software. Today I've worked some more on the Stone Interiors and Bellevue projects. For Stone Interiors, we're using ASP.NET to turn a Sales Quote into a Purchase Order, and then to print that Purchase Order. My ASP.NET skills aren't that great, so it's a wonderful opportunity for me to improve them!

I know HTML/XHTML/CSS, etc. so that's not a problem. And I know VB.NET so VBScript isn't a problem either. It's just using ASP.NET to combine HTML and VB that I'm a little shaky on. I don't know all of ASP.NET's methods and config variables, and more importantly how, and when, to use those variables.

I also did some minor changes to the DataBases for Bellevue. They needed a way to identify which Blanks and Coils went together so there needed to be a Blank/Coils xRef table. So I added that table, and the necessary columns to other associated tables. And then using our custom framework I added the tabs on the Blanks screen to show a screen with a list of the Coils. From that Coils screen, the user can easily add or delete a coil. This work took a very short amount of time. The Tuppas framework is set up in such a way that I, as the programmer, don't have to create the "Add" or "Delete" buttons, nor actually do the DB processing. As surprising as that sounds, all I have to do is to create a screen with the necessary fields, and then link that screen to its parent. It's sorta like a Bound Control in VB, but it doesn't take nearly as much effort or time. The framework takes care of the DataBase processing for me!

The only two areas that slow me down are not knowing exactly how the Framework works (since I've only been using it for a week) and handling errors when I do something incorrectly. (The errors show up with ASP's cryptic error messages, and there's nothing I can do about how they show up!) But once I learn all of the features of the Framework I'll be even more productive since I won't have to correct nearly as many of my Framework mistakes, nor have to spend a lot of time trying to decipher ASP's error messages.

As you can tell, I'm having a great time here at Tuppas. (And for those of you who are wondering why I'm writing this instead of doing more programming, this blog is actually part of my job!)

Hope you all have a great weekend.
More next week. Til then,

Hal Hamer

Welcome to my new blog

2008-01-17T10:27:00.000-05:00

Hi, my name is Hal Hamer and my background includes 30+ years programming experience, mostly in various forms of RPG (RPG II, RPG/III, RPG/IV, and ILE RPG) on midrange IBM systems (S/34, S/36, AS/400, iSeries). A week ago I started a new career track, working as a programmer at Tuppas Software. Last week was spent in training on how to use their neat framework (which sits on top of ASP.NET).

Tuppas Software makes highly configurable manufacturing software and manufacturing execution systems (MES) for the shop floor. They also provide ERP class software for manufacturing enterprise management. Their industrial software is browser-based, using thin-client .NET technology which makes management of MRP, MES and ERP functions easy and quick, even across a large enterprise.

This week, in just the few days that I've been here, I've already helped with setting up systems for:

Stone Interiors, a custom counter top company in Alabama, Louisiana, and South Carolina that fabricates granite, marble and other natural stone for counter tops, fireplaces and custom specialty projects.;
The Bellevue Manufacturing Company, an Ohio manufacturer that creates and distributes oil filters for the automotive industry;
Schneider Electric, a recognized world leader in Electrical Distribution and Automation & Control, operating in 190 countries and headquartered in France, with US Headquarters in Illinois.

While the items above were jobs that Tuppas Software has been working on for a few weeks, next week I'll be traveling to Cleveland, Oh to meet with a new customer to do a demo of our system and to define what they need in their new system. It'll be interesting to see the progression from start to finish, and I'll keep you updated about this project as it progresses, as well as all of the other jobs I'll be assigned to.

Thanks for coming to my blog, and I hope that you'll find it interesting and want to come back often. Bye for now.