Production Scheduler Framework and Automation

REQUIREMENT

A global manufacturer of industrial products mostly builds finished goods for just-in-time fulfillment, but does maintain a modest inventory of sub-assemblies, and plenty of raw materials and parts. The high costs to warehouse large amounts of inventory and build out high volume manufacturing capacity is prohibitive, so tight control of production scheduling is critical to maintain the timely turnaround customers demand.

ISSUES

Details for scheduled work orders and work-in-progress are certainly visible and reportable in NetSuite, but client requires more comprehensive and intelligent tools to define and visualize each production line’s unique production capacity and availability at once, in order to schedule production and promise product delivery. 

SOLUTION

We collaborated with client to implement their tried and tested system of capacity based on points and points required to build for each raw material process, sub-assembly and finished product assembly, and implemented automations to do the majority of the work.

• Each production line is defined with capacity, man hours per day of the week, and per business week. Adjustments can be quickly made to account for holidays, seasonality, unexpected maintenance, and fluctuations in labor availability

• Each sub-assembly and finished product assembly are applied a default production line and points per unit, as well as points per optimal production quantity (to account for efficiencies in multiples)

• Each work order is automatically applied total points based on its quantity of finished and sub-assembly items, adjusted for available and committed inventory

• As production steps are completed for a given work order, business hours to complete are recalculated and made visible through a custom reporting UI

• New Work Orders are automatically applied available production slots based on their requested ship date (via Sales Order), for just-in-time production and delivery, but may be overwritten by production manager

• A custom Master Scheduling User-Interface presents calendar visibility, by week or month, of availability, scheduled work, and statuses of work in progress, each presented with key details and color coding for at a glance assessment (red, orange, yellow, green). Production manager may click through to override start or complete dates, override capacity threshold, etc.

With the vast majority of scheduling now automated, all stakeholders have clear visibility, including sales and other NetSuite “Available-to-Promise” automations. Production manager can now focus on improving manufacturing equipment issues, supply chain relationships and efficiencies, and team-building.

* Image courtesy of Science in HD