Lean Manufacturing Consultant’s Journal

Role of the Production Scheduler in a World Recession

2008-11-06T01:27:26Z

The manufacturing industry has greatly dropped to a shadow of poor achievements. It all started from the start of the American subprime loan problem and the influence of the world wide recession. In such a market environment, we are the maker of the No.1 production scheduler Asprova APS, which is centered around the Chinese manufacturing market.

We took two measures to reward our customers in the manufacturing industry who have helped us become successful. One of them is the release of the Asprova Light product, where we implemented only the necessary functionality for manufacturing and created an entry level product. While realizing a beneficial effect with little investment early on, the customer can still add additional functionality later on. Secondly, the Asprova KPI function is a tool for preparing long-term business plans. When factories use Asprova KPI ,in addition to optimized delivery date and production efficiency, you can also achieve the aim of cost price reduction too. You can produce faster and cheaper results.

While we recognize this to be the role of the production scheduler in the time of recession, we continue to persevere with the development of our product everyday. By all means, download the free trial version of Asprova APS from our homepage. We are looking forward to hearing about your requirements and opinions.

written by Kenichiro Fujii @ Production Scheduling System Asprova

Kaizen Philosophy: Company Competiveness

2008-10-21T09:39:45Z

As you know there are 7 kinds of wastes in the instruction of the Toyota Production System (TPS), the first four of them are:

1. Waste through overproduction
2. Waste through stagnation
3. Waste through unnecessary stock
4. Waste through unnecessary conveyance

These have all been caused by long production lead time and high levels of inventory. Both of these problems are related directly to each other and if the lead time excels, there is also a lot of inventory built up as well. You'll understand better if you see the picture of iceberg. It is not an overstatement to say that almost all the costs of a company are hidden behind the problem of these both. Conversely, it can be said that reducing both is the best method of reduction of fix costs and variable costs.

The ability of a company will be reflected in its lead time and the volume of its inventory.

A company has a responsibility to two groups. One is the employee who performs the management of the company and the other is the stockholder who offers the funds for it. Obviously, if the employees are not feeling happy with the company and have no pride in their place of work then the company will be unable to generate the results which will satisfy the stockholder in the long run. Therefore, the greatest responsibility of the top management is the bearing of social responsibility, namely, to perform the maximum effort for long-term continuation of a factory.

If society is moving at all, focusing on the free economy principle, there cannot be any security which promises the existence of a factory in the long run anywhere. Let us suppose that the product of the factory is accepted in the market and that the factory's manufacturing excels that of the competitor. That is, it is more skillful than the competition and can produce at a lower price.

The factory can produce at a lower price than its competitors because;

The process quality is high so that the quality cost is low.
The process lead time is short so that the cost of work in process is low.
The process is flexible so that the finished inventory cost is low.
The productivity is high, so that the personal cost is low.
Standardization of the design is high so that the material cost is low.
The level of production technique is high so that the production cost is low.
The level of KAIZEN activities of the whole company is high and the elimination of MUDA in the processes continues so that the cost is low.

For the above mentioned reasons the factory is exceeding the competitors and has lower management costs.

Always coming out one step ahead of the competition must never flag and you must continually improve the standard of all the present processes. Since your competitors are also naturally performing KAIZEN activities, the activity must be superior to them in content, and the execution must be faster in speed and also more frequent. That is, the manager's job is always 100% KAIZEN.

Lean management synchronizes all of the KAIZEN activities currently performed at each section and each group company-wide, ensuring that all the activities are in the same direction, that performing the activity itself is without futility, and that you investigate a cost cutting of a company thoroughly.

All companies have a long-term vision. For example:

1. Fulfill social responsibility through long-term existence of a factory.
2. Contribute to the development of a local area.
3. Contribute to the environmental preservation.
4. Return profits to a stockholder in the long run.

The long-term vision of the company should be evaluated and quantified as a business objective. Because, employees must be able to consistency check their track record, the track record of their section, the vision of their company, the business objectives, and management results. Each employee needs to be able to find out their identity in a company, and be able to realize it.

In a free economy society in order for the company to survive they have to beat the competition. Develop competition of a product, competition of improvement in quality, improvement in service, reduction of lead time or stock, improvement of productivity, and the cost competition to which continuation of the company was finally applied. Since at each company the company-wide improvement activities are always repeated for the sake of survival, KPI(s) such as the productivity of a company can not be the same as last year, naturally the figures are reset up every year.

A company's result depends on the process standard of a factory.　That is, the level of the method and system is a problem. There are many techniques in a production system、for example, tact time production system, one piece flow production system, pull system, process leveling system, Kanban system, quality management system, supplier management system, etc. Even if improvement in the company's results is realized, you must always improve the standards of the methods and systems of the present processes.

Although "Kaizen" of a factory is a general term that is now understood globally there are various tools like 5S, standardization, a doctor nurse system, TPM, and TQM, six sigma, IE and VA, and VE. There are various techniques for quality management etc.

In conclusion, improvement of company result = improvement of the actual standard of the process = Improvement in the present improvement technique and these three cannot be separated

Used with kind permission from KPC.

See here for more details about Kaizen consulting services from KPC

Takahashi's Scheduler Case Book: Chapter 8

2008-10-20T13:59:03Z

The Speedy Case of the Electronics Corporation

I visited Company H, a large Japanese electronics corporations that has a major share in the Japanese market. They had already installed ten production schedulers and those schedulers were making a major impact on their manufacturing. The reason that I was making this visit was because I had received a report saying that the schedulers we had delivered needed debugging. The bugs consisted of inaccuracies in remote area situations resulting in imprecision and I was there to investigate the problems being caused. I was able to find out what the bug was almost immediately and got it fixed.

Looking at the data, I could see that more than 4,000 resources were registered, the largest number I had ever seen. About 3,000 of these were for tool and die. The reason that so many tool and die plants were registered was because there was a tool and die for each product type. As far as tool and die products are concerned there is more than one type. There are major restrictions on the preparation of a production schedule such as how the tools and dies are going to be used, we have to register all these different types in the production scheduler in order to schedule production. The main machines have fully adequate flexibility which is so that they can handle customer orders for very quick delivery time.

As soon as an order comes in, the production scheduler immediately starts scheduling going backwards from the delivery date and time, it checks the date of arrival and the available raw materials, and then sets the production schedule in place. That is how a just-in-time production schedule is made. Express orders are placed forward in the production schedule and we know when production will be complete from when production begins. Then we give an answer back to the customer on delivery time. That creates a production schedule with the shortest lead time.

We know precisely whether order with the most recent delivery time will be on time.
We also know at what time we should begin making the orders that have later delivery times and when to have the raw materials for them ready. Managing a production schedule that entails 4,000 sets of raw materials by manual production scheduling would be impossible.

I was able to see that one of the reasons this corporation is a leading force worldwide is accurate management of fast on-time deliveries through the use of production scheduling.

Case Closed. . .

Learn more about Production Scheduling at Production Scheduling System Asprova

Written by Kuniyoshi Takahashi: Production Scheduling Case Book

Takahashi's Scheduler Case Book: Chapter 7

2008-10-20T13:56:53Z

The Case of the Auto Parts Factory

Production scheduling at an auto parts factory--preventing a company's collapse

One day I received a sudden visit from a newly appointed president of an auto parts company. This was an excellent company that had started up a production scheduler on its own. The new president was a section manager at the time the scheduler was installed, and now the young man had been elevated to the position of president. The first thing he said to me in giving his reason for the visit was surely an exaggeration that "the installation of that production scheduler has kept our company from going under. Truly, there are some things that only a new president would do.

I asked what the situation was. He told me that with the introduction of the production scheduler they had become more efficient, cutting inventory by 30 percent and lowering the break-even point by 35 percent--a very exhilarating experience for a manager. I told him, "That's terrific." He told me, "That's not all. After that the economic bubble in Southeast Asia broke and the auto industry was deal a heavy blow. We two had a very high level of export orders to Southeast Asia and those took a sharp drop. It's clear that if we had not installed a production scheduler, we would have been hit with a lot of red ink, but we weren't."

The excellent contributions of a production scheduler to corporate profits make the developer very happy indeed.

Case Closed. . .

Learn more about Production Scheduling at Production Scheduling System Asprova

Written by Kuniyoshi Takahashi: Production Scheduling Case Book

Takahashi's Scheduler Case Book: Chapter 6

2008-10-20T13:54:34Z

The Case of the Fabrication Plant

Production scheduling at a semiconductor fabrication plant--Maximizing throughput.

The president of a semiconductor company called me and asked me to come and visit their plant. This company handled the latter stages of semiconductor production. The market was moving along very well and they were flooded with orders. At the production control manager's office, the customer liaison would hold daily meetings to check into whether their orders were being delivered to customers on time. The customer liaison officer had been staying for months at a business hotel not far from the plant . The production control side was also working frantically to handle more of the increasing orders. Even when they went home they were in frequent communication, on Saturdays and Sundays, via cell phone.

When I got to the company, everyone was waiting for me, from the president on down. The president had already check the operation of the free introductory version of the production scheduler that had been installed. The president was keen and clearheaded. The employees were also an excellent group possessed of a high level of knowledge and experience in IT and production control. I first gave a full general explanation of the production scheduler. The president said, "It will be a good thing if this production scheduler is a nice toy for our production planning manager." If we can tell what the delivery time to the customer will be and when the completion occurs at the factory, that will make the work of the manager much easier. He also said that, "Rather than reducing our inventory and cutting back on lead time, our most important task is increasing throughput." Our biggest job right now is to take the resources that we have available to use and the production scheduler and use them to increase the monetary worth of production to the maximum.

Keeping the introductory consultation to a minimum, I got the production scheduler up and running. Not only that, but the installation project took only the short period of four months. They didn't take most of the external installation consultation, and although I thought the startup time was too fast, as one should have expected, installation and introduction proceeded apace, which was mainly due to the visionary president and his excellent staff who were knowledgeable and well-experienced in IT.

After the business startup, I against visited the plant. The president told me, "After we installed the production scheduler, we found out that we could reduce our work force by 12 people. That is a cost reduction of ¥40 million per year, so that allows us to recover the cost of installing the production scheduler." Aside from the fact that they were able to reduce their work force by 12 people it actually gave them much more flexibility in the plant. There was also a visible difference in the people in charge in charge of production planning who now seemed much more at ease in their work. One could easily see how this easily acceptable projected had produced such excellent results.

Case Closed. . .

Learn more about Production Scheduling at Production Scheduling System Asprova

Written by Kuniyoshi Takahashi: Production Scheduling Case Book

Takahashi's Scheduler Case Book: Chapter 5

2008-10-20T13:52:17Z

The Case of the Flexible Manufacturing System

Production scheduling for job shop type production [flexible manufacturing system, FMS] (small volumes of widely divergent product types)...Freeing oneself from the mundane nature of production schedules

I visited a factory that produces many different kinds of reagents.

At the plant, I talked to the person who is in charge of the production schedule and it was she who gave me an explanation of the kind of production scheduling they were doing right then. She said that at first the enormous flow of many different product types in small lots seemed like an seriously extreme task. We had a person doing the production scheduling manually, with extraordinary skill, and she was making those schedules every day based on intuition and perception gained through experience. This person may well have been one of the most experienced and skilled people in the company. If this person had to take time off because of illness, the people in the factory would have to go to her house and ask what the production schedule for that day should be and only then could the factory start operating. It sounds like a joke but that is exactly what was happening. It makes me shiver to think what would have happened if the production scheduler had to be in the hospital for a long time. Not only that, but in one or two years, the human production scheduler was set to retire. They had tried teaching a younger employee the job, but to no avail. The plant was in a really tough spot. It would have been very difficult to recruit someone who had the capabilities to do this job. That's when they came to the idea of trying out a computerized production scheduler.

In a situation like this we have the important task of removing the human variable by sharing data through the use of IT. Now the highly skilled production schedulers who had supported manufacturing during Japan's period of high economic growth are retiring one after another. I'm sure that many companies are in the same situation as this one.

Case Closed. . .

Learn more about Production Scheduling at Production Scheduling System Asprova

Written by Kuniyoshi Takahashi: Production Scheduling Case Book

Takahashi's Scheduler Case Book: Chapter 4

2008-10-20T13:45:49Z

The Case of the Plastic Molding Factory

Production scheduling for a plastic molding factory...providing production scheduling for molds and dies.

I visited a plant for forming plastic. They needed management of the mold forming and their production schedule is complex. Not only that, but recently they have had to assembly of plastic product after it has been formed and that makes the production schedule even more complicated. They wanted to solve these problems. Another problem for them was that one of their customers, a car maker had announced that it was going to cut its number of suppliers in half and they also had this reason for needing to show the results of their making improvements. If those efforts failed, the carmaker would no longer do business with them.

When I was giving the demonstration, the president of D Company said, "That's enough. We've already decided to go for a production scheduler. Mr. E is in charge so recommend it to him." The points on which they had decided to install a production scheduler 1) the production schedules for the plastic molding machines and the too and die machine were done simultaneously, and 2) the production schedule for the assembly routine was also set up at the same time. In addition, they gave good grades to a production scheduler that could be set up immediately without any customization. I told them that we should first test a prototype to make sure that it would run well, so together with Manager E we built a prototype. This manager later started up his own production scheduler. This manager is very highly skilled. He started the production scheduler up successfully in a very short period of time. His was an approach getting the production scheduler started up without hitches and within the range of standard scheduler function, but the important point is how quickly it took him to succeed in starting the production scheduler.

I again visited the plant after the scheduler was in operation. The production scheduler was moving along very well. When I was ready to leave the section manager offered me a ride to the station in his car. On the way, he said to me, "Mr. Takahashi, thanks to your scheduler, we were able to survive that cut back in parts suppliers that the car maker implemented. And rather than losing orders, our number of orders is on the increase. Thank you for that. However, this busy period is a good one. Even if we leave things as they are, we're making money. But, what's going to happen when the demand falls off? If demand does drop off, the workers at the plant will make it look as if they're busy. I can understand that logically no matter how busy we are. When times are slack it would be better for the company to slow down and not produce a lot of excess."

The president is a wonderful person who makes good decisions quickly, but this section manager had the managerial perspectives for keenly seeing into the future. That is a company that will survive very well.

Case Closed. . .

Learn more about Production Scheduling at Production Scheduling System Asprova

Written by Kuniyoshi Takahashi: Production Scheduling Case Book

Takahashi's Scheduler Case Book: Chapter 3

2008-10-20T13:42:20Z

The Case of the Semiconductor Plant

Production scheduling at a semiconductor plant...Speed essential for a production scheduler.

I visited a semiconductor fabrication plant. This company has put a lot of money and more than six months of time in developing their production scheduler and they have just started to put it into operation. Be that as it may, they would like to have a demonstration of our production schedulers. When I asked them why, I was told that whenever they run real data on their just-developed scheduler, schedule processing drops down to more than five hours. The semiconductor industry has to strictly observe promised delivery time even when changes are made in orders. If a change is made in the delivery time for the order, corrections have to be made in the production scheduler. Then what happens when processing takes five or more hours? That would lead to a delay in measures for countering delays in delivery time. If that happens, a human production scheduler would be faster, making determinations promptly and giving instructions to onside workers to ensure that delivery is on time. A slow production scheduler is fatal. We got the data from this plant's production scheduler and held a demonstration several days later. The semiconductor fabrication process features an exceedingly long 150 steps. Not only that it uses an enormous amount of data. We ran the production scheduling on real data with the customer in attendance. Then, what happened? We finished the entire process in five minutes! We were even questioned with "Did that really get all the calculations done just now?" Of course it's doing all the calculations. However, five hours had been turned into five minutes. In a situation like that any kind of change in order can occur, no matter whether that would be a change in delivery time or a change to an express order, and you can make changes in instructions with this production scheduler.

In the example that this company gives us, the scheduler they had developed was able to complete processing a schedule in a few minutes when data load was low, (all quite natural) but when real data was entered in large volumes there was a rapid drop off in production scheduling speed. If you're talking about the person who developed the program, they'll have an understanding of what the reason is. There are many difficulties in designing a production scheduler program that won't change speed no matter what the volume of data it handles. One thing that makes us proud about our Asprova production scheduler is that no matter how large the volume of data, its production scheduling speed remains the same. The production scheduling time for 10,000 jobs is ten times the production scheduling time for 1,000 jobs and one-tenth the production scheduling time for 100,000 jobs. This is the production scheduling logic that I came up with during a one-week sojourn in Hokkaido, traveling with the family in the summer of 2001. During that week I let the children play and I designed Asprova APS. What a wonderful memory.

After we got the system operating, I went back to check on it, and the manager told me, "We wouldn't be able to get our work done if we didn't have your production scheduler. From the schedule results we found out that leaving one semiconductor fabrication machine vacant causes a loss of 100 million yen. We would probably have bought this system even if it had cost 50 million yen. "

At any rate, the speed of a production scheduler is vital.

Case Closed. . .

Learn more about Production Scheduling at Production Scheduling System Asprova

Written by Kuniyoshi Takahashi: Production Scheduling Case Book

Takahashi's Scheduler Case Book: Chapter 9

2008-10-19T08:11:00Z

The Suspicious Case of the Product Planning Scheduler

I installed a production scheduler at an auto parts manufacturing plant for Company I several years ago and had decided to pay them a visit to see how the scheduler was still operating. The first question I asked was why they weren't using KANBAN even though they were an auto parts factory. However, they replied that using KANBAN does not fit an auto parts factory that has many steps in the manufacturing process. This factory was using a production scheduler but it was not making full use of it. If you wonder in what way they were not using it to the fullest extent, it is that they did not use the results from scheduling to provide instructions for production. This would be startling to anyone who has ever used a production scheduler.

What does a production scheduler do for us by calculating a schedule? It makes the preparations for production. In one of the books that describe the Toyota Production System, in order to use KANBAN they first have to prepare for production based on three months worth of unofficial order information. The main work in preparing for production is firstly, calculate the quantity of parts needed from the unofficial order information and order any necessary raw materials from their suppliers and secondly, use the unofficial order information to check on the load conditions in the plant. At this plant those two jobs were performed using the schedule results obtained from the production scheduler. Because the requirements for the raw materials, the quantities of parts needed, and the equipment load conditions were already close to being satisfied when the actual production started, production can be performed by onsite discretion so that confirmed orders can be completed on time. (This way of using a production scheduler makes it more of an APS [Advanced Planning and Scheduling] or a product planning scheduler than it does a standard production scheduler.)

A production method like this is effective when used to manufacture a product with relatively stable demand such as auto parts. However, even for auto parts when it becomes difficult it becomes to predict fluctuations in demand, for example, with the production of special vehicles such as trucks, construction machines, fire engines and ambulances then there will be a greater need for the generation of work instructions by means of production schedulers. Even when fluctuations in demand are large, a production scheduler can calculate today what is needed in three months if it has received three-month's worth of unofficial order information. However, it is impossible to forecast what will happen in three months by onsite discretion and provide a production schedule today for that forecast.

One of my beliefs as a businessman is that if you can read the future then you can predict the outcome in advance. Just how far can you read ahead?

Case Closed. . .

Learn more about Production Scheduling at Production Scheduling System Asprova

Written by Kuniyoshi Takahashi: Production Scheduling Case Book

Takahashi's Scheduler Case Book: Chapter 10

2008-10-19T07:22:42Z

The Strange Case of the Ever Increasing Inventory

I recently visited a clothing manufacturing plant in China. Company J had already installed a production scheduler in their Japanese plant and it was producing good results. This time I was off to China to install a production scheduler in their Chinese plant.

Before the installation of the production scheduler in their Japanese factory, all of the processes in the factory had their own WIP (Work In Progress) inventory and this was being stored in different rooms. Because of this a large amount of inventory was being built up between each process and it was resulting in long production lead-times. The person in charge of installing the production scheduler thought that this WIP inventory between processes was the source of all their problems and believed that it was necessary to connect the production processes together one after another in order to improve the flow of production. Thus it was, that a production scheduler had been chosen as the tool to do that job.

By installing a production scheduler Company J could clearly see the necessary amount of raw materials that they would need and also the exact timing of when these materials would be needed for each process. As a result of this they were able to vastly reduce the mountain of inventory that had been building up between each process and as a consequence they freed up 50 percent of the factory floor area.

The important point here is that they clearly recognized that the WIP being built up between the processes was the source of their problems and that they made the bold decision to remove it.

Case Closed. . .

Learn more about Production Scheduling at Production Scheduling System Asprova

Written by Kuniyoshi Takahashi: Production Scheduling Case Book

Takahashi's Scheduler Case Book: Chapter 11

2008-10-19T07:13:40Z

The Uncanny Case of the Fragmented Production Control

Company K had a food processing plant that I was called upon to visit. A certain Software Integrator had developed the production control system for the plant and there were a number of points about it that the president did not care for. I had agreed to demonstrate our production scheduler and whilst the demonstration was going on, the president came over and interrupted me. He told me that this was just what he needed. He wanted to be able to manage the entire manufacturing process as one interconnected line.

In certain cases, the production control system can be divided up to control each process individually. However, this kind of system places a limit on how much you can reduce the lead-time. This is why our production scheduler came to be incorporated into this production control system.

It's fine for the managers of each department to think about only their own manufacturing processes but not surprisingly it's the president who has to think about the entire company. No matter whether it's the company's overall supply chain or the flow of processes in the factory, it's important to look at it as one-line throughput in an attempt to optimize the entire overall system.

One of the many advantages of a production scheduler is that it allows you see the big picture of what's happening in your factory, even if your production control system doesn't.

Case Closed. . .

Learn more about Production Scheduling at Production Scheduling System Asprova

Written by Kuniyoshi Takahashi: Production Scheduling Case Book

Takahashi's Scheduler Case Book: Chapter 12

2008-10-19T06:55:50Z

The Perplexing Case of the Imperfect Production Fortune Teller

I visited a plant belonging to Company L that had completed the installation of a production scheduler, which was now up and running successfully. The factory produced tools and dies. The first thing I did was to take a tour of the plant. The results of the production scheduler operation had been printed out and posted on the plant's bulletin board. Typically, the basic function of a production scheduler is to provide detailed work instructions but at this plant the work instructions were not output. Instead, there was a graph displaying the load of each machine and the allocation of operations for all the machines. After this was calculated the actual work would be performed according to what the conditions on site were.

Tool and die manufacturing involves the processing and assembling of several hundred different parts. Just to produce one tool and die can involve an enormous number of processes totaling several hundred. Furthermore, the manufacture of many different types of tool and die has to flow together simultaneously and in parallel. Thus it is extremely difficult for a human being to calculate the total load placed on every machine in a factory. However, through the use of a production scheduler it is possible to produce detailed instructions for each machine by considering their total load even for the most complex manufacturing processes.

However, there is a lot of processing time for the processing steps of the tool and die production that cannot be fully determined at the design stage. This means that you won't be able to know what the final processing time will be until the work actually starts. If this occurs a lot then the work instructions calculated precisely by the production scheduler and the load values calculated from those instructions will be of use only as reference values. That is why the processing work is carried out through decisions made on site at the time of the actual production using the load values and work allocation for each machine generated by the production scheduler as only reference values.

It is because of this kind of situation that there is a tendency for people to think that a production scheduler cannot be used when there are a large number of inaccuracies in the BOM resulting in processing time that is not completely accurate. However, even if there is a certain degree of error in the BOM, as long as the production scheduler can make the calculations then the required load of the machines and the necessary quantity of raw materials can be understood. With this information displayed as graphs the production scheduler allows you to realize the "visualization" of your manufacturing and it is by making full use of this information that is of the most benefit.

In all instances in life, not just in business, there's no way to tell what the future will bring. What's important is to get all the information we can obtain right now, forecast the future to the best of our ability and then make the first move.

Case Closed. . .

Learn more about Production Scheduling at Production Scheduling System Asprova

Written by Kuniyoshi Takahashi: Production Scheduling Case Book

Takahashi's Scheduler Case Book: Chapter 13

2008-10-19T06:44:44Z

The Curious Case of the Scheduler that Made Itself Redundant

I had the opportunity to talk with the staff of Company M who had purchased a production scheduler. The company's parts factory manufactured a wide variety of metal clamps, fittings and fasteners. When I asked how things were going since they had installed the production scheduler they replied that it was doing a great job for them, but that they were no longer using at the moment. A little taken back I said that it couldn't of been of much use to them if they were no longer using it but they said not at all, it had been of great help to them. Sensing a twitch in my case book, I then questioned them further.

They had entered the bill of materials (BOM) and orders into the production scheduler and based on the production schedule generated they had been able to fine tune the plant's operating conditions including the elimination of bottlenecks, balancing of production lines and the relocation of equipment. They had figured that since they had be able to improve their manufacturing so much that they had already got their money's worth out of the purchase of a production scheduler. The fluctuations in demand for their products were fairly even so all of decisions about daily production could be made on-site instead.

This is a very good example of how a production scheduler can be used as simulation tool to model the manufacturing process of a factory.

Case Closed. . .

Learn more about Production Scheduling at Production Scheduling System Asprova

Written by Kuniyoshi Takahashi: Production Scheduling Case Book

Takahashi's Scheduler Case Book: Chapter 14

2008-10-19T06:38:16Z

The Intriguing Case of Who Reforms the Reformers

There was once a rural plant belonging to Company N, a major manufacturer that had installed six production schedulers simultaneously. I received a communication telling me that everything with the production schedulers was running well but that something had unusual had occurred during installation.

The head office's production reform team had come to the plant to provide guidance about KAIZEN and is very often the case the plant itself would have to pay for this guidance. For a long time the reform team examined, very carefully, the production scheduler that was in operation in the plant. However, rather than giving advice on how to use the production scheduler, the reform team said quite the opposite. They admitted that it was they that had actually learned a lot about how a production scheduler works.

The improvement recommendations that this reform team would make were all manually oriented, in other words concerning only the actions that humans would carry out. Improvements such as this, the improvement of human-related action is of course important. However, it is far more effective to use the simultaneous combination of retraining personnel and adopting the use of large-volume high-speed processing afforded by the computerization of the production scheduling.

Case Closed. . .

Learn more about Production Scheduling at Production Scheduling System Asprova

Written by Kuniyoshi Takahashi: Production Scheduling Case Book

Takahashi's Scheduler Case Book: Chapter 2

2008-08-03T11:18:14Z

The Baffling Case of the Mistaken Bottleneck

A had received a call from Company B, a factory that builds specialist vehicles. Unlike general motorcars that have high production and relatively stable demand, the demand for specialist vehicles changes frequently and they require a lot of customization for options and special parts. Because of this, it's difficult to make use of a KANBAN system so instead they decided to implement a production scheduler instead.

This time, the production scheduler had already been installed and it was my first time to visit them since they had got it up and running. Current operations were running smoothly so I asked them about what improvements they had been able to see with the production scheduling of their specialist vehicles since they had started using it. And once again I was surprised to see that an unexpected benefit had been gained.

After using the production scheduler for only a little while they had discovered that the process, which everyone had suspected of being the bottleneck in the production, was in fact not the bottleneck at all. Instead, they had been able to identify the bottleneck as being a completely different process. Before the implementation of the production scheduler the company had already planned to purchase new manufacturing equipment for the mistaken bottleneck, at the cost of 4% of the annual turnover, to replace the current machinery. By being able to correctly visualise the true state of their factory they had now been able to hugely improve the effectiveness of their factory investment and as a result of this they were able to get a return on the money they had spent on the implementation of the production scheduler in just one year.

I'm always happy to hear about cases like this where a company has been able to justify the implementation of a production scheduler with such obvious cost improvements in their manufacturing. However, it also acts as an important reminder that we should be aware that the bottlenecks that every factory experiences may not always be where everyone thinks they are.

Case Closed. . .

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Written by Kuniyoshi Takahashi: Production Scheduling Case Book