Simplifying the Making of Complex Products - Control Design

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WHITE PAPER• Cellular manufacturing – A system in which equipment and workstationsare arranged in a manner that allows for continuous and smoothmovement of inventories and materials to produce products from start tofinish in a single process flow, while incurring minimal transport orwaiting time. Kanban, or a system for signaling when new parts areneeded, usually drives the movement of parts to a work cell rather thanrequiring workers to go and find parts.• Kaizen – The philosophy of continuous improvement. It calls for allemployees—from the CEO to line workers—to constantly look for andsuggest ways of improving processes.• 5s – Refers to five actions that must be taken to start and maintain asuccessful Lean program. The 5s are: sort, set-in-order, shine,standardize, and sustain.Adopting these principles clearly can help companies achieve the goal ofstandardizing business processes in a way that should lead to the consistentproduction of quality products within fairly reasonable lead times. But historyhas shown that it’s nearly impossible for an entire global enterprise to adhereto a standard set of processes over the long term without the type ofdiscipline that can only be imposed by a properly designed ERP system.For manufacturers of industrial machinery and components that would be afully integrated system, allowing the free flow of information across thefollowing critical components:• A customer relationship management and/or sales management systemlinked to a product configurator that enables sales or customer servicereps to make quick determinations on the company’s ability to deliverthe exact product a customer is requesting;• Flexible and scalable inventory management and supply chainmanagement functionality, enabling the company to forecast and trackcustomer demand and quickly adjust procurement plans and productionschedules in line with that demand;• A robust, enterprise-class project management solution for shepherdingorders from the quote and bid stage, through the design and productionphase, and finally to managing post sales support.This solution also must support Lean methodologies, in addition to having anoverarching technology layer that gives individual users access toinformational portals and dashboards.The portals and dashboards should present users with the currentinformation necessary to perform their job at the highest level of efficiency,while also allowing them to analyze the performance of business processes ina way that allows for developing strategies for improving performance.One question that is bound to arise for any company considering a new ERPsystem is: Can we afford it?Simplifying the Making of Complex Products 6
WHITE PAPERThe project manager for a construction equipment manufacturer answeredthat question like this:“We are replacing legacy systems with a corporate standard ERP. While thesystems we have installed have most of the functionality of the corporatestandard, they are not as integrated or connected. Six months before westarted our implementation we formed a team to answer the question, “Howare we going to pay for this?”“We identified four areas: lower inventory levels, less premium labor, lessexpedited freight and less time to close the books every month.”In other words, if the ERP system is the right fit for the business it will payfor itself.Simplifying the Making of Complex Products 1
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