visual planner: production planning and scheduling solution for exact macola progression and es

Visual Planner

Production Planning and Scheduling Solution for Exact Macola Progression and ES

LYNQ Taking Your Business to the Next Level

Why is planning production so important to Exact customers?

In today’s economic climate Exact customers are looking for solutions

that will give them the lean manufacturing and competitive

advantage they need to stay ahead of the competition.

Typically however, they are struggling to manage something that should be

at the very heart of their business – Production Planning. They are still

manual tools like Excel spreadsheets to do this. Their schedules are totally

blown apart when a rush order appears, re-work is required, operators report

sick, a machine breaks down, or demand does not match the forecast. All of

this results in the their Planners spending endless time re-assigning work,

changing priorities or altering process routes to meet delivery dates. Over

time the inability to produce reliable production plans will result in higher

operating costs and a potential loss of business.

What will Visual Planner do for Exact customers?

Fully integrated into Exact Macola progression or ES, Visual Planner will drive

the optimization of the production process, providing the control required for

effective planning and resource management. Using Visual Planner in a

Macola integrated manufacturing environment will greatly improve customer

service levels while simultaneously increasing efficiency and maximizing

output. Through Visual Planner‟s graphical planning screen a single point of

reference is provided to view all the information needed to make effective

planning decisions (Departments, Work Centers, calendars, product details,

order details, free capacity, material requirements and availability). With

manual systems, it is impossible to bring all this information together into a

single coordinated view.

Visual Planner works straight out of the box and can be fully implemented in

under week. This ultimately means a quicker return on your investment. Once

installed you will immediately see your live Macola data and will be able to

drill down into information that includes orders, stock availability, trial kit list,

captured bill of materials, order properties, production reports and much

more. In addition, you have the ability to instantly write data back into your

Exact Macola system confirming production schedules. All of this helps you

achieve complete unison with your purchasing plans and enables you to

produce reliable up to the minute production plans.

Today’s Business Challenges

Keeping direct material costs down

Difficulty accurately assessing capacity

and load

Trying to level production and load

Reducing labor costs

Reducing procurement costs

Reducing production wastage

Reducing production WIP

Keeping to delivery dates

Reducing costly inventory levels

Winning new business

Visual Planners answers

questions like this:

What can we promise for a delivery

date?

When should we order the materials

that are needed to complete this order?

Can we transfer production to

alternative work centers?

What is the impact of this new order to

our current backlog?

What order should we run next?

Can we complete this order earlier?

What are we shipping this week?


The Exact Solution

Visual Planner will provide Exact customers with an unrivalled way to

see the resources they have available and allocate work accurately.

So, not only will it make the planning process more efficient, but will

help them to:

Give reliable delivery promises to customers, avoiding the costs which can be incurred in meeting unrealistic dates. This can reduce overtime, premium prices paid for rushed raw material deliveries, and much more. And of course, the company‟s on-time deliveries will improve so that they can meet those key customer service targets.

Easily see the time and resources available in each work centre, so work

can be accurately scheduled, knowing the people and machines should be available. This will ensure the best use is made of the resources, and also highlights idle time that might be used constructively, or creates an opportunity to cut costs.

By accurately scheduling each order, the Planner will provide the purchasing team with the right information from which to plan material orders and stock. This helps to ensure the materials are available when they are needed.

Helps to achieve the best match to customer delivery requirements which means that customer service can improve at the same time as reducing finished goods stock.

Provides instant access to material availability information for either one order or many. This means there should be no surprises and, if a vendor fails to supply on time, the Scheduler can quickly change the production schedule so valuable machine and labor time is not wasted.

By improving production planning the company can reduce the time wasted in non-productive activities, ensuring that they get the most from their resources. And everyone has an easier life!

Less disruption and changes in the production process will also help the company improve quality and reduce wastage. This means the company can often do the same task more quickly and with fewer materials. Reducing the percentage of waste by only one-tenth of a percent can lead

to a 3% improvement in productivity.

Less disruption in the purchasing process means buyers can do their job in getting in materials that are good quality, competitively priced, and delivered on time

Production planning is often done too late and with too little information.

This means raw materials are purchased using fixed or estimated lead

times. With Visual Planner, production planning is fast and efficient and will

help reduce the company‟s stock levels.

The positive effect that Visual Planner has on productivity by cutting work-

in-process (WIP) inventories for a given level of output should be

significant. In some cases, a reduction of WIP by one-tenth will produce a

significant rise in productivity and free up cash tied up in inventory

Will allow the Planner to see everything from the graphical planning board

e.g. Customer Orders, Bill of Materials. Real drill downs.

Growing list of standard features

Support for Jobs – A job is something

that has multiple tasks. This can be a

customer order with pulled POP or SFC

orders, a POP order with dependant

orders, a Shop Order or Parent Shop

Order with dependant orders

Support for tasks – These can POP

Orders or Shop Order Operations. Tasks

can be executed in sequence, with or

without overlap or in parallel, as in

Shop Floor paths

Multi Users & Multi Company Scheduling

Progress status on task in scheduler

view – A progress bar provides a

graphical view of the percentage of

work completed on any order.

Multiple methods of scheduling

including, drag & drop, automatic

backward, forward and sequential

scheduling.

Various reports are available including

production plan, SF reports, late

delivery and capacity charts.

Dashboard‟s also available.

Create your own shop calendars and

apply them to departments and work

centre‟s

Fast return on investment – works „out of the box‟, eliminating costly installation and implementation periods.

Fully integrates into Macola packages providing access to real time data to base production planning decisions on

Clear upgrade path from Exact Macola

Progression through to Exact Globe Written with the latest Microsoft .Net

tools, you can be confident Visual Planner incorporates the latest technologies. It will not just make your production activity more efficient, but will also be compatible with up-to-date operating systems and software.


Visual Planner‟s automatic scheduling rules aim to reduce as much as possible the „makespan‟ time for a job and to reduce the disruption caused by tool and line change over time, thereby keeping work in progress to a minimum

Works in complete unison with Macola‟s MRP, so buying plans match production thus reducing raw material stocks and purchasing costs. Buyers can concentrate on cost saving

Designed from the outset to work in co-operation with Macola Progression so gets the best from the company‟s existing investments.

Unique Features

Because Visual Planner is the only production planning and

scheduling tool that is completely integrated into Macola Progression

and ES, it can provide Exact customers with features that are simply

not available in other packages. With Visual Planner it is easy to

interrogate live Exact data without the need to ever go into Exact. Extensive

drill-down features provide you with instant access to information that will

help you to make better planning decisions. Features like these:

Graphical Planning Board: Lets your clearly see the available working time

in each work centre and the orders already scheduled. The orders that you

need to schedule appear in a spreadsheet style list that you can sort any way

you wish. Simple drag and drop each order when you wish to schedule it, or

let automatic scheduler do it for you. This will save Schedulers so much time

and release them to manage activities on the shop floor.

Delivering benefits from day 1!

Fewer production stoppages and lower

excess costs due to ‟waiting time‟

Improved control of ‟Work In Progress‟, hence reduced use of overtime to solve problems

Improved ‟on time‟ delivery

performance

Lower air freight and late delivery penalties

Flexibility to respond quickly when requirements change

Rapid “What if” planning to look at

alternative solutions before expediting them to the shop floor. This keeps the workforce busy and helps smooth out those production peaks and troughs.

Increased efficiency, better quality products and crucially less wastage through schedules generated by Visual Planner

Helps accurately predict what stock is needed and when, reducing the levels

of expensive safety stock

Ability to reduce lead times through improved control

Efficient production plans allow buyers to take advantage of best prices and availability, quantity of materials, helping to lower direct material costs.

No need for costly overtime and crisis management

Helps accurately predict production

capacity and its impact on delivery schedules

Production plans are is instantly written back into Macola reflecting new dates working in complete unison with Exact‟s MRP module.

Visual Planner will free-up production

Planner's time. Typically, the time saved is in excess of 50%. This time saving allows closer monitoring of production and higher efficiency levels.

Compatible with up-to-date operating

systems and software

Increased visibility through View Only licenses

Ongoing support and development from

Lynq‟s highly experienced Support team


LYNQ

Unique Features Continued……

Trial Kitting: This feature allows the Schedulers to see all the components

needed for any group of orders that you select. Shortages are highlighted in

red and they can drill down to see open purchase orders with two mouse

clicks. Trial Kitting will help Schedulers identify available stock in one or

multiple stocking locations. All of this will help them to confirm that all the

components needed are available before any orders are released. If the

materials aren‟t available they can quickly rearrange production to keep

things running smoothly or contact the purchasing department to expedite

the materials required so that they can complete the order in time for

delivery to the customer.

Bill of Material: Visual Planner provides you with the ability to drill down

into the live captured BOM data that is stored in Macola from the Graphical

Planning Screen.

Production Order Properties: Order Properties drill down provides real-

time information on the item location, stocking policy, customer orders,

manufacturing and production reporting all from one screen. Your

Schedulers will never need to look at a Macola screen again!!!!

Calendar Maintenance: The limitations that exist in Macola‟s Shop

Calendar are now a thing of the past. With Visual Planner you can quickly

create and maintain calendars that are based on real operational times.

With easy to use templates, you can define your standard working day and

week (start time lunch time and end time) and apply them to one or many

work centers. Special day rules can also be created and applied to your

working calendar to represent things like double shifts, machine down time,

reduced head count and much more. By doing so, a visual representation of

available capacity within a chosen planning period is clearly visible on the

graphical planning board.

Case Studies

ITW Sexton ITW Sexton has pioneered the design and

manufacture of deep drawn metal

containers for a variety of markets and

applications. With their strong commitment

to excellence and customer service, they

have emerged as a leading provider of

premium drawn components to the

electronics, filtration, and aerosol

industries.

The Business Challenge Trying to run a complex business with its

many variables and requirements using an

excel spreadsheet was a real challenge for

all concerned.

Failure to achieve promised deliveries and

inability to forecast accurately future

delivery dates, determined the main cause

as inadequate availability of information on

machine loading and available resources.

Something had to be done!

Visual Planner Solutions In late 2008 ITW Sexton made the

decision to replace their outgrown systems with Macola ES and Visual Planner.

Delivery performance now

substantially improved

Less pressure on production management – Far more proactive instead of being reactive

Planner is able to make a better assessment of forward lead times

Distribution of Planner‟s “work to” lists helps ensure all resources are available when required to fulfil the schedule

DHS Systems LLC DHS Systems LLC is the world leader of high-tech, soft-walled shelter systems serving medical, military, government and civilian needs. Its primary product is the Deployable Rapid Assembly Shelter, or DRASH, a quick erect/strike shelter system

that integrates shelter, mobility, lighting, heating, cooling and power distribution in one flexible package. A Make to Order Manufacturer who‟s major customer is the US military.


What If Orders: Create these order on the fly, so when a customer wants

to place an order with you, you can quickly establish whether you have the

capacity to complete the order by the customers due date. Once you are

satisfied you have the capacity all you need to do is generate a real shop or

pop order to take up that capacity in your plan.

Capacity Charts & Management Dashboards: Visual Planner provides

short and long term capacity planning charts along with Management

Dashboards providing you with all the information you need to meet your

key performance targets.

Case studies cont. Business Challenge DHS wanted to be able to accurately

assess capacity and load. Leveling the production load with better use of available resources and a clearer picture of current and future workloads was a priority for DHS. Improving visibility between the shop floor and inventory was also a challenge. Visual Planner Solution A much clearer picture from a capacity

standpoint delivered visually on the graphical planning board and through

available reports.

More flexible and dynamic tool allowing the scheduler to maximise available resources and reducing production peaks and troughs.

Using Visual Planner‟s MRP CP & FP scheduling ability and “What-If” scenarios run before committing new start and finish dates into Macola

Integrated dash boards have provided additional management information

directly from Visual Planner.

The ability to see if stock is available or on order in any Macola location before starting production has been a great asset.

International Control Services

The services that ICS provide are

commonly referred to as Electronic

Manufacturing Services (EMS).

Business Challenge

ICS‟s biggest business challenge was how

to reduce their large inventory levels and

WIP. They also needed a better way to

schedule around their forecasts and to get

better MRP pegging information than is

currently available in Macola.

Visual Planner Solution

The ability to automatically schedule MRP CP & FP orders provided

Enhanced MRP pegging through Visual

Planner and creating and referencing of “What If Scenarios”

Exercise to find tune routings for more accurate scheduling

Predicted reduction in inventory and WIP in this year will release a significant amount of cash back into the business.


Business Challenge ICS’s biggest business challenge was how to reduce their large inventory levels and WIP. They also needed a better way to schedule around their forecasts

and to get better MRP pegging information than is currently available in Macola.

Exact Planner Solution The ability to automatically schedule MRP CP & FP orders provided

Enhanced MRP pegging through Exact Planner and creating and referencing of “What If Scenarios”

Exercise to find tune routings for more accurate scheduling

Predicted reduction in inventory and WIP in this year will release a significant amount of cash back into the business.

Earlex Group Earlex are a leading manufacturer of power decorating and power cleaning appliances for both the professional and DIY markets in Europe and Lowes in the USA.

Business Challenge Being a quick turn manufacturer, Earlex take orders from major retailers and therefore must have raw materials sourced quickly, temporary production staff in place and assembly lines available and prepared. The Scheduler’s job of controlling all of this through an in-flexible excel spreadsheet was not only a thankless task but was also very inefficient and was costing Earlex money.

Exact Planner Solution Increased visibility throughout the organization

Reduce and reallocate headcount

The ability to quickly adjust to changing conditions, produce better production plans and provide both the planners and procurement team time to do their job.

Improved stock control

Better fulfillment of delivery promises

The ability to report completed production directly from Exact Planner

Shorter more accurate lead times keeping Earlex ahead of the completion

Customer Quotes

“Our Excel based, in house solution is unwieldy, inaccurate and an I.T.

resource hog. We have looked at several other planning solutions over the

last 18 months and Visual Planner is the best solution. More importantly, the

people at Exact are very attentive and open to building features into the

product that meet our needs. Their in depth knowledge of Macola gives me

confidence that Visual Planner will only get better.”

Russell Hajek Business Analyst ERP Manager Omron

“Visual Planner is extremely well integrated with Macola Progression / ES for

both POP and Shop Floor and with plans to develop a version for Globe there

is a clear upgrade path for companies wanting to move to that platform.”

Steven J. Rogers Principal Beachwood Systems Consulting, Inc.

“When planning labor & parts, in one look I can immediately see an

overview of how busy we are, if there are peaks or troughs during a week or

month”

Mark Maclachlan Factory Manager Earlex Group

“Visual Planner is a significant part of our new production planning process.

This has been a great product for us and an excellent investment that

maximizes the productivity of our MS / MRP system”.

Terry P. Geoman Director of Manufacturing King Technology

Why Lynq and not somebody

else?

Lynq‟s Visual Planner is the only Macola integrated production planning and scheduling tool available on the market

today.

No other production planning solution provider has the level of Exact Macola knowledge and experience that Lynq

has.

We know Exact Macola inside out! This is very important as the products are totally integrated, we know where the data is kept, what impact changes to the data make and so on. It also means that when Exact upgrades Exact Macola or brings out a new release, Visual Planner is quickly made compatible.

Other suppliers have other ERP solutions to consider and are therefore not as quick to react. There is even an upgrade path to Exact Globe.

Unlike other suppliers, we are totally committed to Macola and do not supply other ERP solutions. This means we are free to concentrate on providing best value service and new innovation customers. It also means the

customer‟s investment is safe with us.

We listen to our customers and where appropriate to do so try to incorporate their ideas into the software. Not every supplier is willing or capable of providing that kind of flexibility.

Visual Planner is one of the least

expensive production planning solutions on the market today. In some cases this means that return on investments is almost immediate.


Lynq’s Commitment to You

With years of experience and commitment to excellence, Lynq‟s experienced team has worked with Exact

Macola for over 20 years.

Lynq has an enviable reputation as one of the best suppliers of Exact Macola products in the market today.

For more information on Visual Planner or to arrange a demonstration: Please visit www.lynq.co.uk

Contact Lynq Ltd on

UK: +44 (0) 1329 800 000

US: +1 614 586 4238 Contact Exact Software on 1.800.468.0834