If something goes wrong in a manufacturing business there occasionally comes a time when you have stop what you are doing and re-schedule the order books . Hopefully before you do this you will have worked out what had caused the problem and addressed that first. Some MRP systems will take care of this for you and some won't. If yours won't then I wanted to share this thought with you, in case your re-scheduling efforts seem to be in vain. I see many businesses who, when they are faced with a re-schedule, don't do a complete job. They do enough to level out the next few weeks of production and then hope that they can get away without doing any more. The next couple of weeks may go OK, but then the problems that were there beforehand start to amass, and a few weeks later your overdues are sky high again! If you need to re-schedule your order books manually then please make sure that you do the entire job in one go. Don't pick at it. Don't just do th

'Making MRP Work' is now available in PDF format on our sister website improvingbusinesses.com . It has been for sale for several months on the Amazon Kindle device and will also be making its way on to the other main readers (Kobo, Nook, iPad etc...) shortly. In the mean time you can purchase the right version for your reader via Smashwords . I hope you enjoy it Giles Johnston Author of 'Business Process Re-Engineering', a practical plan to improve business performance   (and Making MRP Work!)

MRP systems are an integral part of many manufacturing businesses. Whether you are running MRP, MRP II or ERP there are some common issues that I see on a regular basis. I see three main points when it comes to using MRP systems: 1. Decide how you want to use your MRP system. 2. Configure the various modules correctly. 3. Manage the MRP process as you would with other processes. For point 1, is your business a ‘Make to Stock’, ‘Make to Order’ or an ‘Engineer to Order’ type of business. Being clear about this can make configuring your system more straightforward. Configuring the modules, point 2 above, means inputting your rules of working into the system. Many businesses either lack the knowledge of how to configure the system or they fail to complete the task. Either way they end up fighting the system’s suggestions every day, often creating workarounds and poor working habits. Finally, there are routines associated with MRP systems. Identify them and build

By defining a handful of essential routines for your business you have taken a step forward. The real challenge is in executing these routines day in and day out. A great way to keep an eye on things and get your team involved with developing these new habits is a ‘sunrise meeting’. Simply, a sunrise meeting is a start of the working day meeting where the key elements of your routine are reviewed. Ideally the routines can be boiled down to a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer to prevent people from dodging the question. For example, if your team were responsible for the shop floor information packs (drawings, works orders etc…) then an effective question could be ’did all of the packs get issued yesterday?’ Sunrise meetings should be short and punchy. If they start to break down into discussions about specific issues in the factory then the focus is lost. The idea is that your team are keeping an eye on the overall process happening day in and day out. Specific issues could point to a part

Many of my clients are engaged in contract manufacturing and have lots of different products moving through their factory. The combination of having many customers, products and batch sizes can create a complex environment. When a business like this is struggling to manage their schedules they can slip into a fire fighting situation. Have you seen different schedules being written down on pieces of paper and handed to your Team Leaders every few hours? The new note is different to the one they received earlier that day and can leave production teams confused. Late orders are chased rather than managed. I realise that demands do change in a business, but not tackling this issue can really diminish productivity. I am a big fan of having formality in the right places of a business. The right kind of discipline and considered action can have a big impact when used correctly. The kinds of problems I have mentioned above often stem back to one problem. Businesses that don’t consistently

A good friend, and colleague, of mine confessed the other week that he had only just started to use ‘to do’ lists. He was almost evangelical about the use of such a tool. I thought that pretty much everyone uses a tool like this. I then thought about this for a bit longer, and I have met lots of different businesses that don’t capture all of the items in their working lives. They may have a main system, such as MRP / ERP , but it’s the little things that trip them up. The promise they made to a customer, a report to print off for a senior manager, specific preparations for a meeting.... or whatever. Being able to capture these items, process and prioritise them, and action them is a skill. I have a feeling that a lot of people see just how much stuff is on their lists if they do compile one that they feel overwhelmed. Is discarding the list the same as ‘burying your head in the sand’? I think so. If you have read my book ‘ Office Productivity ’ then you will know m

Making MRP Work: Available on Amazon My latest book ' Making MRP Work ' is currently available for free on Amazon, via the Kindle reading app. I spend a lot of my time helping businesses to improve how their MRP system is set up. The book is aimed at the manager who is tasked with making MRP work, or who is being measured on their on time delivery performance and has a system that is in a mess.  The book starts off looking at how to configure key elements of the system and then focuses on the managerial approach of running a system effectively. The main links to the book are: UK - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00E9SHAN4 US - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E9SHAN4 ...or find it directly through the Kindle Store. The book will be free until midnight Sunday (11th August) PST. Giles Johnston Author of 'Business Process Re-Engineering', a practical plan to improve business performance.

Is your MRP system helping your business to perform, or is it just creating more work for you? ‘Making MRP work’ is a practical guide aimed at Operations Managers and business directors who need some support with their MRP / ERP system . If you are operating an existing MRP system but feel that it could be doing more for you then this book can help you to identify the changes you need to make. Many businesses find themselves with similar problems. Materials being ordered too late, confusion on the shop floor and spreadsheets are used rather than the system. Does this sound familiar? The sections of this book take you on a journey from the style of approach in using MRP, through the fundamentals and into the effective management of your teams to get the most from your system. Each section concludes with action steps to help you develop your own improvement plan. The final section of the book looks more generally at business improvement projects, with the aim of help

Are you faced with an arrears situation and a growing order book? Do you find that your teams work on the wrong production orders just when it causes you the most problems? I witness these kinds of problems a lot and I thought I would share with you how I start to go about solving the problem. The starting point is often to find the bottlenecks in the process. This solution isn’t about line balancing and introducing kanbans, this is about getting results today. After getting some immediate results I agree that you need to think bigger about the whole production system. Getting a grip of the schedule running through your bottlenecks and ‘micro managing’ the situation immediately before the bottleneck is vital. Sucking in the right work at the right time to keep your bottlenecks primed and working is essential to try and keep on top of your overall schedules. If you have read the book ‘ The Goal ’ then you will be familiar with the Theory of Constraints approach. This bl

MRP systems have been around for a long time. The phrase MRP came into popular usage in the mid 1970s and although systems have gotten faster and more accessible they are still fundamentally the same. Sure, they have more bits and bobs connected to them now, but they still perform an aggregating function that can save many hours per day of laborious administration. So why is it that we find businesses fighting their systems? I find in many cases that the way the system is configured will determine how much you will have a fight on your hands. If you set up the system to mimic what you do (providing you are sane of course) then the system will do your work for you in a fraction of the time. If you set up the system in a way that doesn't incorporate your rules and logic then you find that the system is constantly trying to override what you are wanting to do. It’s like having two completely different people trying to do the same job. Should the above sound famil

There are many ways to approach to the issue of ‘ lead time reduction ’ in a business. We can look at the interfaces between departments, we can look at changeover times, we can look at machine vulnerabilities and we can consider production flows and scheduling. We can also look at how we, as leaders, change our minds and mess up the process with alternating priorities. I realise that priorities will and do change. But sometimes priorities change because we perceive them to be needed to be changed. Could we find a way to hold off changing a priority and waiting until the current project, proposal or production is completed? Being more systematic about our priority changes could make a huge difference to your output and also yield shorter lead times. It has to my clients. Giles Johnston Author, Consultant and Chartered Engineer

A better question can lead to a better answer. One of the discussions I find myself in on a regular basis is around the quality of questions. Depending on what kind of question you ask can affect the type of answer you will receive. Intuitively this makes sense but, from the conversations I have, does not appear to be a common practise. An area where this type of situation often arises is during meetings about continuous improvement projects. When there is a lack of clarity around a subject we often accept the answers we receive and act upon them accordingly, as if they were the gospel. By reflecting upon both the question and the answer and how you feel about both elements will help you to determine whether a better question needs to be asked. We can tighten the focus of our questions, or we can relax them. We can ask open ended questions, or clarify specifics with closed questions. We can shorten or lengthen the time period the question refers to. We can

In last month’s update we discussed having a healthy business information system, and how we need to ensure that the information in the system is correct, either through a better understanding of why the system needs to operate in a certain manner, or through better training. Following on from this is the need to establish specific disciplines, or habits, that make keeping a healthy business information system in place easier. There are number of methods to help you put in place the habits needed to operate you business systems. Most of these ideas (whether visual, team based or electronic) require some form of defined routine to give them direction. If you think back to your school time table you will recall that people knew where they needed to be at what time, and what the subject was. I’m not suggesting that your team needs to endure the absolute rigidity of a timetable like this, but some form of structure about what tasks / processes need to happen and when can do a lot t

One of my clients used to joke about their business delivering on the 37th of the month, meaning that they missed their end of month delivery dates by several days. I still smile when I think of this phrase, especially when I am helping new clients overcome their scheduling issues. A lumpy order book that isn't managed properly is one of the main causes I have found to affect on time delivery performance. The fix isn't too difficult either, spend some time to reschedule the order book so that you can give your customers a realistic delivery plan going forwards. Slightly more tricky is ensuring your business doesn't get back into the same position by changing how you accept work into your order books in the first place. This is something we discuss in ' Business Process Re-Engineering ', available on Amazon, and a great place to start if your on time delivery performance isn't where it should be. Giles Johnston Author, Consultant and Chartere

Are your project capacity needs going up and up and up? I've been involved recently with an organisation that is struggling to balance out all of its commitments and project requirements so that the projects can be delivered on time whilst maintaining the existing levels of service it has already agreed to. The reason for writing this post is that businesses who have a strong physical element (for example construction or manufacturing) in their business usually have some kind of capacity planning tool , to help them them put their resource in the right department at the right time, but often this approach does not extend itself to the office environment. This is even more important when you work in a business where project management isn't the sole purpose of that business. For example if you have to incorporate two projects to your already crammed schedule then the question that needs to be answered is 'when is the best time for us to deliver these projects at th

Many businesses have some kind of priority system for identifying orders that need to be given special attention. I realise that having this 'turbo boost' capability for your business is a good thing to have, if it is used sparingly. Sometimes businesses can come unstuck when they fail to agree on ' what is a priority ' and fall into the trap of labelling everything as a priority. If you are in a backlog situation then everything looks like a priority, but the system then no longer serves its purpose. If you are in a backlog situation and use a priority system but aren't getting anywhere then it might be time to rebalance your order books, provide new dates to your customers, and agree on a formal method of identifying and managing priorities within your business. Giles Johnston Author, Consultant and Chartered Engineer

One of the central issues to any business is how do you manage your capacity. Getting this wrong can result in poor delivery performance , confusion within the business and unhappy customers. Do your capacity levels fluctuate wildly? Many businesses have some form of software (such as project management software, ERP / MRP etc.) to help do this, but what about businesses that don't have this support? Regulating your capacity is all about knowing what you have committed to and when. Many businesses that don't have a formal system do have some kind of paperwork or spreadsheet system to help with their day to day management . Adding some simple capacity information to these systems can be quick and straightforward to do and can give you a surprisingly quick improvement to the level of control you have over the operational side of your business. From visual management ideas with your paperwork stacks, to an additional (hours required) column in spreadsheets, all

MIS Overview Most businesses have some kind of MIS (Management Information System) that is designed to drive the actions of the business. Whether you use CRM, ERP, an online project management software application, or a spreadsheet, they all can count as a MIS. Over time the quality and usability of that system can wane and leave the business with a less than effective tool for running the business. Correcting this situation is not difficult . If this is something that irritates you as you strive to achieve a consistent on time delivery performance (with the accompanying high level of customer satisfaction and business profit) then read on. Lack of understanding One of the most common reasons I have come across for a MIS system losing effectiveness stems back to a lack of understanding of, and around, the system being used. There are two issues here that I would like to quickly touch upon. The first is the lack of appreciation by team members of why a healthy system i

If you are running an ERP / MRP system a good question to ask is ‘do my staff understand the reports they use?’ I have visited many businesses over the years who use such systems and it still staggers me how many of them don’t really understand the information that is provided by the system. Not only can this cause issues with delivery performance but it can create additional work, bloat over time requirements, inflate working capital and generally produce chaos in the workplace. Periodically it may be worth your while to review the core system reports with your teams to see if they can be improved and ensure that there is correct understanding of how to use the reports within the group. Smartspeed Consulting Limited Taking the frustration out of on time delivery.

As I was finishing the 'go live' of a client's MRPII system, I found myself explaining to their members of staff that trusting the MRP suggestions is a lot like just trusting the Sat Nav you have in your car. I'm sure you've experienced the time when you're Sat Nav has told you to take the next left but you decided to carry on driving straight ahead. When you get to your destination you often have the insight that you're Sat Nav was in fact correct and had provided you with the best route. Your route was sub-optimal in this example. MRPII systems are very similar, we may not understand why they're telling us what to do, but with a bit of digging, and a little bit of understanding we can understand why it is doing what it is doing. Once this comfortable state has been achieved we can then follow the MRPII instructions and use our new found time savings to better effect, such as our continuous improvement projects (rather than running around like headles