Tailored On-Site Education Programs
Any
of these problems sound familiar?
Our
people don’t understand our company’s vision
Even
management has little appreciation for, or understanding of, what’s needed
for future improvements.
Critical
resources (people, time, and money) are being wasted in “generic”
education program that don’t address company issues and problems.
We’ve
had too many failures of both systems and projects to deliver anticipated
results.
What’s
the solution? A solid, well-planned
program of tailored, on-site education. Top
management and operating management need education and training to fully
understand how to manage and how to use the latest tools and techniques to
compete successfully in an ever-changing environment.
But these programs must be tailored to company terminology, issues, and
problems.
Our Approach
We
can help you prepare a detailed, on-site education plan.
We provide the initial customized educational sessions to ensure that
your key people will be ready to upgrade your management approaches confidently
and on a timely and cost-effective basis.
These
courses are focused on your needs — we use only those tools and approaches
applicable in your environment. We
will show you how to solve problems in a time frame that matches your plans.
The courses include detailed explanations and examples, as well as
interactive workshops. Workshops and brainstorming sessions are designed to help you
identify and solve your problems through interactive sessions that get your
people working together in teams, and starting to apply the concepts to your
environment and situation.
Following
intensive on-site interviews with your people to review your current situation,
Partners for Excellence will select proven educational materials from our
extensive library. We customize
these materials into courses that best meet the needs of your personnel.
We don’t use the old “memorize and forget” methods.
In our courses, your people will discuss, understand, and apply what they
have learned. The focus is on
solving problems and improving business results.
Individual
course durations vary. The size of
the audience, your individual situation, and the level of understanding of your
people can affect the amount of time required.
These
courses can be scheduled at your convenience, and for a reasonable investment of
time and money. The time your key
people spend away from the job will also be kept to a minimum.
Best of all, the courses focus on opportunities for immediate results and
improved operating performance. Following
the session, we provide consultation to help you apply the theories and
practices, to get you on the road to success and keep you there.
Click here for an explanation of our Tailored Education Methodology.
Education Materials/Topics Available for Tailoring
Sales
& Operations Planning (S&OP) in the Value/Supply Chain
Sales
and Operations Planning is the management process for developing and constantly
updating a company game plan that balances market demand with resource
capability (yours and those of your suppliers and partners). It represents
Top Management’s “handle on the business,” provides a way to draw out and
resolve natural conflict to develop a true manufacturing / sales / marketing
contract, integrates all functions of the business by developing a “single set
of numbers” from which all the plans and schedules can be developed, and
provides a forum for evaluating company performance. If done properly, it
ties the strategic imperatives of a company to its tactical plans in a dynamic
way, keeping up with all changes in both demand and supply.
Click here for detailed Topics for Tailoring.
Forecasting
and Sales Planning
Forecasting,
the “Achilles’ heel” of most enterprises, is the systematic, detailed
projection of estimated customer demand used for future business, materials and
resource planning. Even if a
company is already doing the best possible job of supply planning and execution,
it can improve customer service and reduce costs through more accurate
forecasting and sales planning processes. We
can help you sort out the key issues in forecasting.
In many cases, implementing only a few changes in the forecasting process
can lead to dramatic improvement in forecast accuracy, and company results.
Click here for detailed Topics
for Tailoring
Demand
Management and Customer Linking
To
successfully meet the demands of customers and markets, you need not only to
anticipate those demands, you also need to manage them.
Critical to successful demand management is the understanding of all the
sources of demand and developing effective customer communication and order
management processes tailored to the needs of each of these sources.
Traditionally, anticipating demand has meant forecasting, but there are
new, more effective approaches to getting better, more timely information from
customers. Customer linking, based
on open and trusting partnerships, can provide more timely and accurate
communication of the true customer demands to the supplier.
This enables more effective planning to provide better customer service
for each market segment, while optimizing costs and inventory investment
throughout the value/supply chain.
Click here for detailed Topics
for Tailoring.
Master
Scheduling (MPS) and Collaborative Planning
The
master schedule constantly balances customers’ needs with what you can and
will deliver. It drives material
planning, regulates capacity planning, is the proper source for order promising,
and can convert “what if” questions into answers.
The Collaborative Plan extends the master schedule’s balancing focus to
include your key value/supply chain partners. Simplifying
these processes and maintaining balance prevents broken promises and damaged
relationships with value/supply chain partners, while optimizing capacity utilization
and inventory management.
Click here for detailed Topics for Tailoring.
Material
Planning
Planning
material flows so that material availability is “worry-free,” is a tough but
essential job in managing a high performance value/supply chain.
It requires synchronous schedules so all materials are available when
needed, while minimizing inventory investment.
We can help you understand the role of the computer in this planning
process, and how a material planner can use formal systems to evaluate
recommendations, convert messages into responsible action, and make intelligent
decisions based on data and experience, not emotion or gut feel.
Click here for detailed Topics for Tailoring.
Capacity
Planning
Incorporating
capacity and critical resource considerations into the overall scheduling and
planning process is vital to providing good customer service, optimum resource
utilization, productivity, and cost control.
Long Term Resource Planning, Rough Cut Capacity Planning, and Detailed
Capacity Requirements Planning are all tools that can be used to manage and
control key resources, both people and equipment.
These processes are used in conjunction with developing valid S&OP
production plans, master production schedules, and detailed plant schedules,
both within the company and for crucial value/supply chain partners such as
subcontractors, suppliers, distributors, finishers, etc.
Click here for detailed Topics for Tailoring.
Managing Supplier Linkages
Worry-free
material availability requires effective material planning but does not end
there. Getting the right materials at the right price and at the
right time takes the right relationships. True
supplier partnerships must be mutually beneficial by minimizing cost and
inventory through better, more accurate, and more timely exchange of
information. It must be based on an
integration of the major technological approaches in manufacturing and
distribution, including Value/Supply Chain Management, Lean Manufacturing /
Synchronous Flow, Total Quality Management, People Empowerment / Team Building,
and, of course, Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II).
Flow
Synchronization and Plant Scheduling
Every
manufacturing company must have effective processes that synchronize planning,
scheduling, and execution. This
encompasses consistent, simple, yet structured processes for communicating work
authorization, specification, and priority while gathering feedback to generate
performance monitoring and reporting. The
use of visual tools and Lean Manufacturing techniques can be key to improving
and simplifying many of the manufacturing processes being controlled.
This will lead to more flexibility, shorter cycle times, greater
efficiency and productivity. Achieving
this will lead to simultaneously reducing costs, inventories, and cycle times as
customer expectations, business objectives and financial improvements are
achieved.
Data
Quality
To
achieve World Class / Class A performance, it’s critical to maintain accurate
data, including inventory records, bill of materials, recipes and formulas, and
routings and process instructions. One of the key building blocks is organizing an inventory
record accuracy program to maintain 95%+ line item accuracy in less than 90
days, based on an ongoing cycle count program.
This will result in the elimination of wall-to-wall physical inventories.
Equally important is achievement of 98% bill of material (BOM) and
routing accuracy, starting with routine, simple auditing techniques that
highlight the root causes of any data inaccuracy and trigger corrective action
to improve and fine-tune product / process data maintenance.
Click here for detailed Topics for Tailoring.
Managing Bills of
Material
Without
reliable and accurate product and process specifications, resource planning and
scheduling systems don’t have a chance of delivering the promised benefits.
As companies undertake simplification and flow synchronization,
Continuous Improvement and Lean Manufacturing, these product and process
specifications must be adjusted to support the new approach to manufacturing.
Properly developing, maintaining, structuring, and integrating bills of
materials (recipes and formulas) and routings represents a critical data
foundation to support improved operations.
Click here for detailed Topics for Tailoring.
New
Product Development
A key
competitive advantage can be gained by implementing best practices for
developing and releasing new products quickly, effectively, and accurately.
World Class improvements can be gained only by encompassing the
principles of Concurrent Engineering and Concurrent Development
(cross-functional involvement in decision-making).
Establishing a carefully defined structure for managing product
introduction and change from the concept through design, introduction, and to a
post implementation review is critical to achieving the desired results.
Clearly identified responsibilities for decision-making at critical
points in the development process ensure maximum management control of the end
result and the investment required.
Click here for
detailed Topics for Tailoring.
Distribution
& Warehouse Management
Managing
Value/Supply Chain and Distribution costs represents, for many companies, an
underestimated source of profitability and competitive advantage.
It is key to effectively integrate sales, marketing, distribution, and
manufacturing functions to support correctly planning how much, when, and where
each of your products should be stocked. Distribution
Resource Planning (DRP) is one proven management process enabling companies with
distribution networks to dramatically improve productivity and customer service
while reducing inventory and overall costs. DRP provides a detailed, timely tool to convert forecasts and
customer demand information into the proper product replenishment plans as input
to the master scheduling process. In
some environments, the need for DRP can be eliminated by directly linking the
plant to the end customer needs. This
often implies dramatic changes in distribution / transportation approaches as
well as redefining the roles of the value/supply chain partners.
Click here for detailed Topics for Tailoring.
Collaborating
Across the Value/Supply Chain
The
essence of Value/Supply Chain Management is not just utilizing the worldwide web and
e-commerce. That is just the means
to the end of more timely, detailed and effective communication with customers
and suppliers, leading to more formal and structured working relationships built
on joint decision-making. It
requires thoughtful Value/Supply Chain rationalization and configuration, constructed
in a way that all partners will benefit.
Click here for detailed Topics for Tailoring.
Performance
Measurement for Continuous Improvement
What
is measured can be improved. Establishing
the correct “vital signs” for critical Value/Supply Chain processes, creating
accountability for improved results, and ensuring that processes exist to
diagnose problems in performance and identify the real root causes of these
problems, are key to operational excellence.
We can help create the right set of cascaded, interdependent measurements
with a reporting and review process that will drive real improvement.
Click here for detailed Topics for Tailoring.
Integrating
with Financial Planning
Truly
effective financial planning and decision making can only be done when based on
operational system drivers and data.
Actual costs, revenues, and inventory values should be linked to the data
in the planning system and the transactions that update it.
Future financial plans (cash flow, projected inventory valuation, etc.)
and estimates of performance can only be determined accurately when they are
based on the forecasts, schedules, and inventory projections that are a routine
part of the planning systems (ERP / MRP II).
We can show how to link financial planning processes with operational
data to get better, more reliable results.
Continuous
Improvement – Eliminating Non-Value-Adding Activities
Key to
gaining a competitive advantage is making repeated dramatic changes in processes
that result in benefits such as eliminated waste and increased efficiency of
equipment, space, and workers, through simplified operations and shorter
manufacturing and supplier cycle times. Activities
important in achieving these improvements have been included under various names
over the years, including Just-in-Time Manufacturing, Lean Manufacturing, Agile
Manufacturing, Flexible Manufacturing, Synchronous Flow Manufacturing, and Total
Quality Management. Regardless of
the name, the common underlying power of these concepts is based on finding and
eliminating non-value-adding activities — that is, activities that increase
cost but don’t improve the value of the product or the process to the
customer. Establishing a
company-wide understanding and institutionalized focus on this potential for
improvement provides a competitive advantage for true industry leaders.
Click here for Topics for Tailoring.
Achieving
Value/Supply Chain Excellence
Regardless
of whether a company is implementing new systems, redesigning processes,
reconfiguring the organization, or just driving for improved operating
performance, the goals should include real business improvements and gaining
on-going competitive advantage through “Best Practice” processes.
How can a company tell if it is getting its money’s worth from the
efforts? Are the results all that
is possible? Are the right
things being worked on? How do
accomplishments compare to competitors, or the “best in class”?
We help companies understand the relevance, applicability, and
implementation of Operational Excellence, World Class Performance, and Class A
in their organization.
Click here for detailed Topics for
Tailoring.
Managing
Change and Implementation
Implementing
effective Value/Supply Chain Management, Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II), and
Lean Manufacturing / Synchronous Flow must involve more than software upgrades,
and implementing individual techniques. The
length of time it takes to achieve positive results, and the level of the
benefits, have less to do with software and techniques, and more to do with how
individual and group behaviors are changed and managed in using those new tools
and techniques. To optimize
results, a company must understand and honor the principles of personal and
organizational change management. And the
changes must be designed and implemented concurrently across all functions and
involved organizations with a view to optimizing the total process in order to
satisfy the ultimate customer. This is called Process
Management.
We
can help develop a practical road map based on proven principles that will gain
maximum benefit in the fastest possible time.
Whether a company is implementing Value/Supply Chain Management, Process
Management, Manufacturing
Resource Planning (MRP II), or Lean Manufacturing / Synchronous Flow for the
first time, upgrading and improving an existing system, implementing as part of
a broader improvement program, or simply upgrading parts of resource planning
systems, we can help institute the kind of enlightened change management that
will produce the desired results.
Click here for detailed Topics for Tailoring.
