| 1. ManEx Minute - 12 - Order Status Updates |
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November 12, 2008
Issue 12
Greetings,
We continue to gain new readers each issue. Thank you for reading, responding, and for forwarding the newsletter to others. As we increase in readers and reader contributions, the newsletter will become even more valuable.
For this issue, we will address order status updates. An important part of profitable manufacturing is effective communication between employees, departments, and customers. Ineffectual communication can increase delays, issues, and prevent companies from reaching their full potential.
According to our most recent survey, the average job is in production for seven days and requires an average of twenty minutes to gather information for a status update. Depending on the number of active jobs, and how frequently management and customers want an update, this can consume a significant amount of time each week. It doesn't have to, and this issue will show you how.
As always, we look forward to your participation and feedback as you gain new insights and become a more effective provider of Electronic Manufacturing Services.
Sincerely,
David Sharp
ManEx, Inc.
Business Case - Production
North Eastern Company* (N.E. Company) is growing. While the growth is exciting, it also creates challenges. One of the challenges is effective communication.
When NE Company started 11 years ago with 1 customer and 7 employees, each employee was involved with every project and knew all issues and the current status of each job. This made it easier to overcome issues and communicate with the customer. They were collaborative and flexible and accomplished much with a small force.
As they added employees, customers, and projects, they created reports, added triggers, and started having production meetings to try and keep management, employees, and customers updated and work through production issues and delays.
They currently have 57 active customers with an average of 2 open sales orders per customer. They have an average of 16 open Work Orders on their production floor at any given time. They have 5 buyers and 73 production employees.
This complexity creates several issues. It takes an average of 20 minutes to gather status information on any given job, makes it time consuming to update customers, and reduces the production meetings to little more than an update meetings. They don't have time to plan, prepare, and overcome.
How can N.E. Company increase communication efficiency between employees, departments, management, and customers? How can they use their system to offload some of their communication efforts? How can they increase collaboration and flexibility while maintaining quality and control?
* Company name has been changed.
Business Case Solutions
To most effectively manage excess inventory, you should purge what you can, prevent excess inventory as much as possible, and prepare for handling what you cannot prevent.
Read the full Business Case Solution
ManEx Case Solution
ManEx provides several tools to allow users to purge, prevent, and prepare for excess inventory.
Read the full ManEx Case Solution
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Please share your ideas and insights on a topic below. Use the questions to direct your response. You can submit your thoughts to mym@manex.com by clicking the topic title. Where appropriate and space permitting, we will post responses in a future newsletter so all may benefit.
How do you schedule your cycle counting?
How do you minimize impact on the floor?
How often do you cycle count?
How do you reconcile customer and internal revisions?
Do you try to make the internal revisions match the customer's revision?
Do you make an internal revision change each time the customer changes their revision regardless of the significance of the change?
Do you make an internal revision change each time the customer changes the product even if they don't update their own revision?
To suggest a new topic please send an email to mym@manex.com.
To see additional topics, please click here.
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ORDER STATUS UPDATE
"We have a formalized system for weekly reporting to each customer. The report covers more than the ManEx status. Ours includes, forecast, status through the up front processes, details on hold ups, released, committed. We do not show production progress."
-Tom, OR
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ManEx Minute is a weekly email distributed by ManEx, Inc.
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| 1.1. Business Case Solutions - 12 - Order Status Updates |
Business Case Solutions
To evaluate and update current practices for communication, it is important to understand the aspects of communication as they relate to an electronic manufacturing environment. While the information is available, if it is not simple to gather, interpret, and convey then proper communication will be a challenge.
Gather
Before you can adequately communicate, you must be able to quickly gather the required information. Because each can have an impact on delivery, you must have information on inventory and production.
- Inventory - You need to understand the status of inventory for a given job and potential delays from late parts. You should get answers to questions like: Are all components on order or on hand? Will the components currently on order be on time? Is production consuming components faster than expected? Are there currently any unexpected shortages? Will all parts be delivered in time to meet the due date for the order?
- Production - You need visibility of how a job is moving through production and any possible delays and causes of those delays. You should get answers to questions like: Is production producing at the expected rate or is something hindering completion of the projects? What are the sources of the delay and can they be removed or improved? Will we need to adjust the schedule or increase capacity to produce according to our commitments?
Interpret
Once you have the available information, you need to interpret the results in order to determine their impact. This can be done automatically with reports for simple questions like production status and available inventory. For more complex evaluations like whether a current project will be completed on time, users must assimilate disparate pieces of information to reach an answer. The higher the quality of the tools and reports, the easier it will be to determine what communications are needed and when they should be delivered.
Convey
After you gather and interpret the information, you must share the results with affected parties to complete the communication process. The methods of conveying the results vary by the types and complexities of the message.
- Forms - Often times, forms within the system provide enough information to gather, interpret, and convey the necessary information. Because the information is dynamic and current, forms should be used as much as possible as a first step in communication.
- Automatic Messages - Automatic messages can alert employees, management, and customers when projects are late, intervention is required, and orders are shipped. If setup properly, these messages will complete a good portion of the communication without human intervention.
- Reports - Reports are a good way to make complex information readily available upon demand. It is important that the reports contain the needed information in an organized layout to facilitate effective communication. A report can be both a tool for interpreting and communicating. However, it is critical to ensure the report is current so that it contains the most updated and correct information.
- Web Tools - Web tools are another effective tool for conveying information to employees, management, and customers. These are easy to deploy and available upon demand whenever and where ever the user has an internet connection.
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| 1.2. ManEx Solution - 12 - Order Status Updates |
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ManEx Case Solution
ManEx believes that an ERP system should facilitate good communication and simplify the processes you do every day. To this end, we have added several tools to allow users to increase communication and process improvements.
REPORTS:
ManEx has several standard reports to provide an update on a selected order at any time. With these reports, users can get a snapshot of the status of inventory or production. For example, the "Work Order Schedule & WIP Report by Customer" provides a listing of the status of each job on the production floor. With this report, users can see where each board is in production.
ManEx includes the Crystal Reports® viewer so custom reports created in Crystal Reports® can be controlled and distributed through the software. ManEx also has several Crystal Reports® reports available upon request that allow users to modify the report according to their needs. These reports can provide completion percentage information, AVL availability, and production notes.
MODULES:
- Customer Order Status - This screen allows program managers to quickly gather information on any open order for a selected customer. It pulls data from inventory and production and provides visibility of component shortages, notes from the production floor, current status of each job in production, and shipping history including packing list numbers and tracking numbers. This screen is automatically updated as production and inventory personnel record transactions in the system.
- Work Order Shortage Summary List - This screen provides complete visibility of component shortages by Work Order, Work Center, and Part Number. Users can even check the current status of on hand inventory and open orders for a selected part.
- Kitting - This screen provides another method for gathering data related to a specific Work Order. Users are able to simulate a kit pull to better determine component availability and identify potential delays. They also record unexpected component shortages allowing purchasing to order more and inventory to replace the components as needed.
- Open Purchase Order Status - This screen allows users to closely monitor and manage parts currently on order. Users are able to see all parts currently past due, all parts due by a specific date (useful for planning for upcoming jobs), and parts allocated to a specific job or work order. This provides greater control over critical components and can reduce or prevent instances of unexpected production delays due to missing components.
- Dynamic Production Scheduling - This screen provides visibility of all open and scheduled orders. Users are able to see when capacity constraints may hinder production and any time in the future. If used correctly, this module can provide sufficient notice to adjust the production schedule or adjust capacity to maximize production and meet promised delivery dates. It will also indicate when a job will not be completed on time based on processing time remaining and the current due date.
- Shop Floor Tracking - This screen is a critical piece in the communication process. This allows production to update the system as products move through the shop floor. Production can add notes and indicators to identify current issues and delays. This information is readily available for program managers and others so they have important information when it is needed and without chasing it down in production.
- Triggers - triggers allow users to create messages to automatically update employees, management, and customers. The trigger can be set to run on a specific event or at a predefined time. The message can be sent to multiple email addresses selected by the user. This is an effective way of communicating demand to suppliers, production delays to management, order shipments to customers, and much more.
NE Company is working to more fully implement each of the available tools to increase communication and improve their performance and processes. They added more terminals on the production floor to enable each department to keep ManEx current as jobs move through the process. They are also documenting issues and delays with every job so program managers can work with customers as needed. Department managers also use this information at the close of the job to review their processes and determine if process changes are needed, or if they need to adjust the customer's price according to actual production results.
They have been able to significantly reduce the time required to effectively communicate. They now automatically provide much of the update information to customers and management through triggers. Information that requires more complexity is available through forms and reports. It now takes an average of less than 5 minutes to gather the needed information.
NE Company was able to change much of their focus from updating customers and management to their core business of manufacturing as efficiently and profitably as possible.
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