Nine Ways to Use ERP to Make the Manufacturing Supply Chain Lean

Lean in a supply chain context is about a holistic view of procurement, manufacturing distribution, and sales order processing. This means that some level of enterprise technology is necessary to view the organization in an integrated context instead of as functional islands. However, before technology can facilitate the lean supply chain, manufacturing executives need to start thinking in lean supply chain terms. We will be reviewing those terms and sharing the key concepts that are the foundation for the lean effort. In short, we will discuss:

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Four tips to help you bring lean supply chain improvements to your manufacturing operation.
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Five technology tools that help automate these lean supply chain practices.

We'll use a few practical examples along the way to illustrate these concepts, but our main goal will be to define the specific things manufacturing executives can do to make their supply chain lean.

Tip One: Resolve Conflict Between Manufacturing Efficiency and Customer Service

One company that I have been involved with from a lean supply chain perspective, is a manufacturer of paints and coatings. After implementing their new enterprise application, they wanted to use the new-found visibility of their operations to implement a lean supply chain program. They found that before you can lean an organization, you have to have a good idea of what your current operations and processes really are. Then, once you know what you are doing, you can decide on process changes and then measure to what extent those changes have reduced non-value-added work.

What became immediately apparent is that like most manufacturers, this company faced the same conflict between the need to be efficient in production and the need to be responsive to customers. The manufacturing department tended to schedule for maximum efficiency by producing very large batches. This enabled efficient purchase or raw materials , maximum return on machine set-up time, manufacturing personnel, and other costs. Large batches are simply a good way to minimize the cost per produced unit. Low cost-per-unit is attractive, but it is in conflict with the goals of the sales organization. While manufacturing is rewarded for efficiency, the sales department is rewarded for serving the customer, which in turn leads to increased revenue and commissions. If manufacturing commits production capacity to large runs that are not immediately tied to customer demand, it might be difficult to meet the needs of customers as those needs change and fluctuate during the year. An item that is requested might not be in stock and may not be scheduled for production at a time when immediate capacity is committed due to the high-volume production schedule. Moreover, these large production runs mean that large amounts of capital are tied up in finished product inventory long before any revenue can be realized.

In the case of food and beverage and some other process industries, these large production runs can also result in spoilage as the effective life of raw materials and finished goods is spent sitting on the shelf.

The paint manufacturer did the obvious thing—decrease its batch sizes. Going forward, manufacturing would not be making unilateral decisions about batch sizes and production schedules, circumventing their natural tendency to focus on manufacturing efficiency. Instead, they would now be obliged to produce only enough to cover a certain period of time based on the sales projection. That means that every product will now be produced more frequently and in smaller batches. To encourage this behavior, other metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) can be introduced that are more holistic and based on customer service levels and inventory turns, rather than just production output.
There are any number of formal disciplines designed to tie production in with sales forecasts. Sales and operations planning is one such method. By tying manufacturing schedules to sales projections that typically look a short distance into the future, you will be manufacturing what customers are actually asking for, improving customer service, and allowing greater responsiveness. Your inventory levels will decrease in proportion to your inventory turns. The higher the speed through the supply chain, the faster the inventory turns, and the less capital that will tied up in inventory at any given time. At the same time, the faster raw materials move through the supply chain, the less obsolescence you have and the less expired materials you have.

Tip Two: Extend Systems to Suppliers

Once the basic problem of aligning manufacturing schedules with demand is taken care of, the greatest bottleneck to improved supply chain efficiency is often the disconnect between internal scheduling processes and those of external suppliers. Companies that are vendors to major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) know that large manufacturers are working to eliminate this bottleneck, and are often working with suppliers on a proactive basis to help them become more responsive.

Technology can play a vital role in eliminating this constraint. In the case of our paint and coatings manufacturer, one of their main bottlenecks was packaging. They outsourced printing on the cans their product was shipped in, which meant that the supplier cannot finalize their own can production schedule until they know the exact product numbers that will be filled. Their packaging actually took longer to produce than the manufacture of the product itself. Even though the cost of the packaging is low in comparison to the actual product to be filled, the scheduling of the packaging supply is one of the most critical and difficult parts of production planning.

The solution was to set up a supplier portal, so that the packaging vendor and other suppliers could look into the production plan and prepare their own schedule accordingly. This eliminated a lot of the manual and administrative work involved with interfacing with a supply chain partner in real time, removing all manual intervention and administrative delays. Portals of this nature can also provide a longer view of anticipated production so that vendors can manage their own inventories and plan their own capacity according to anticipated demand.

Figure 1. A supplier portal eliminates administrative waste and integrates the supply chain in real time.

Tip Three: Run Parallel MRP Processes

To clarify, this tip does not have as much to do with running parallel systems for manufacturing resources planning (MRP) as much as it is about delaying the commitment to manufacture to a point where demand is visible, known or certain.

Even as companies try to focus on the disciplines normally associated with the idea of a lean supply chain, this another fundamental paradigm shift that must take place within their organization, and it is often overlooked.

For instance, many companies operate with one single MRP process. Consider that company that manufactures in a make-to-stock (MTS) mode, whose executives feel that this single MTS enterprise system is adequate for their needs. This attitude is fine—if a manufacturer has a stable, predictable demand for all of its products. But in reality, few manufacturers have the luxury of flat demand. More often the rule of Pareto is applicable. This rule suggests that 20 percent of products have a stable demand, and you can manufacture them efficiently in large quantities. But the other 80 percent of a manufacturers' part numbers are ordered less frequently, and therefore need to be treated differently in the company's processes, systems, and scheduling. This is why virtually any MTS manufacturer should run in multiple manufacturing modes. Most MTS manufacturers would gain from a parallel make-to-order (MTO) system. This will avoid the stockpiling of a large number of items that are more effectively handled in MTO mode, freeing up both capital and production capacity for other products, all without sacrificing responsiveness or customer service. By continually analyzing demand patterns and inventory turns, the point of postponement can be changed over time to achieve the optimal balance between efficiency and responsiveness.

A modern, agile enterprise application will include all of the necessary tools to handle these multiple modes. Apart from ensuring that they have the proper enabling technology, manufacturers will need to carefully analyze the demand patterns for their finished goods and divide them into MTS and MTO.

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Figure 2. Demand Planning—Minimize the forecast error and improve customer service without sacrificing inventory turns.

Tip Four: Master the Demand Forecasting Process

Too many companies fail to give demand forecasting the attention it deserves, and this is often the undoing of even the most aggressive lean supply chain project. If you think of a demand forecast, the more accurate it is, the better position you are to supply to the market with what the market needs. Conversely, basing a lean supply chain effort on an inaccurate demand forecast is like building a house on a foundation of sand.

If you can increase demand forecast accuracy, you can decrease your inventory and increase your level of customer service at the same time. Unfortunately, most companies divide responsibility for the demand forecast among multiple departments. Sometimes, the process is owned by the sales department, and they tend to be too optimistic, because optimism is in their nature and they want to avoid disappointing a customer by being out stock. At the end of the day, no one is specifically responsible for forecast accuracy, perhaps, in part, because the company lacks the proper tools to develop an accurate forecast. It is not surprising that, as a result, this crucial role tends to “fall between chairs” in many enterprises. It is imperative that a manufacturing enterprise assign demand forecasting to an independent party within the company that has more of a holistic point of view than would sales, manufacturing, or any other specific department.