To: Ed Mueller, American Hydraulics
From: Eddie Barnett, A-M Systems
From: Eddie Barnett, A-M Systems
Re; The Project - Plant Floor Data Tracking/Reporting
I want to give you my views and understanding of American Hydraulics, Red Oak IA. Of course I have not toured the plant in any official manner, nor do I have any preliminary information. This “pre-analysis” is based on minimal exposure (during open house) and past experiences. Time!.. it’s all about “Saving Time” – or at least reducing time for individual tasks, in whatever form a task may be. Whether it be task time or report logistics and method of reporting. However, additional savings may be realized in a number of other areas, including reduction of waste, improved Quality Control and reporting, and other material costs that may or may not be Time related.
In our initial face-to-face meeting, you mentioned two(2) words/phrases that are a key to the beginning - First – Champion (you), and Second - MRP.
The First (Champion for the Project) is very important to the ultimate success of any new project. Without foresight and the interest of local personnel, any new projects’ fulfillment is difficult. A “Champion” of the project carries the banner and is intent on exploring projects that will be a benefit to the company.
Second, MRP indicates that the Corporation is involved, at least on some automated reporting level. Any project initiated with the intent of improving (something) at the plant level must begin with an understanding of the MRP system and the associated relationship with Corporate.
By definition, MRP stands for: Material Requirements Planning. It is basically a system for calculating the materials and components needed to manufacture a product. Officially it consists of three primary steps:
1. taking inventory of the materials and components on hand,2. identifying which additional ones are needed and then,3. Scheduling their production or purchase.
Those steps do not always match precisely with a given local plant – in our case American Hydraulics.
What is not included in this simplistic definition of MRP is how, where and when inventory is tracked and/or reported. Thus the exercise required is often referred to as “Data Collection”… sort of a catch all phrase that conjures up the image of each point within production tasks where there is noting and/or recording of some element of information, otherwise referred to as “data”.
What is not included in this simplistic definition of MRP is how, where and when inventory is tracked and/or reported. Thus the exercise required is often referred to as “Data Collection”… sort of a catch all phrase that conjures up the image of each point within production tasks where there is noting and/or recording of some element of information, otherwise referred to as “data”.
I suggest three areas on which to focus on the Project at hand:
1. Plant Office – to understand plant logistics and procedures – from corporate to plant floor,2. MRP – to understand current Corporation expectations and relationships,3. Plant Floor – review each task center – from Receiving to Production Floor to Shipping
Within each of these task centers there is an “In & Out”, and each task center should be analyzed on their specific task/activities and then how those said activities integrate with other task areas.
The Plant Office operation is the hub of any such organization where there is a non-local corporate structure. This is the interface between Corporate and Plant Floor. It should go without saying that there will be plant management and personnel that are responsible for integration and structure required for communicating with plant floor personnel. But knowing the make-up of the rest of the local office staff is an important phase of the overall analysis, i.e. are there engineers, programmers, accountants, etc.
Plant Office has dictates from Corporate and is responsible for communicating with the Corporation, while at the same time being responsible for the logistics and the management of the local plant operation. Sales, Purchasing, Payroll, Production Orders, etc. are but some of the basic tasks centered in the office area. As with all projects that have the intent of overall improvement, the less changes that have to be made, the better for the success of the Project. Having said that however, it should be understood that there will most likely be changes to select tasks within The Project.
Analyzing the MRP system is necessary to better understand the relationship between Corporate and the Local Plant Operation. The Local Plant seldom has a role in the development of the MRP system and therefore must be able to synchronize any local changes to conform to MRP requirements dictated by Corporate. Of course the ultimate goal of such a Project would be to be a financial benefit to the Local Plant which would in turn be a benefit to the Corporation.
Said Benefit may be realized in a number of ways, including, but not limited to a reduction of labor, reduction of waste materials, reduction of errors in reporting, increased productivity, as well as perhaps other less obvious benefits as till such time as a full analysis may be conducted. MRPs are often spawned at the Corporation Board level with the goal of better “control” and financial reporting. But sometimes it may miss the intended goal if the Corporation does not take into account the exact operation of the production effort and logistics of the local plant level, and their knowledge and experience. Offtimes the Corporation MRP system incorporates all of the different companies and operations that fall under their Corporate Umbrella. Since quiet often the individual companies have entirely different forms of production and products produced, it can be difficult to make one system satisfy individual plant operations.
Therefore, the first phase of any analysis of a local operation, such as American Hydraulics, should begin with an understanding of the current MRP system – including, but not limited to the Corporation dictates and requirements, method and means of logistics, etc. – starting at the local level with an analysis of what the local tasks are, and eventually communicating with the Corporation. This may be a two-fold need – 1.) to let Corporation know that there is a local effort to improve the local plant productivity, and 2.) to get a basic understanding of how they are using the data provided. If for no other reason than to communicate with the Corporation the interest that the local plant has for reviewing potential productivity improvements. This could be the end of The Project if the Corporation is not in sync with the Local Plant taking on such a project. And I must say that, in past experiences, that sometimes has been the case. The ideal situation is that the ultimate Control is maintained at the corporate level, as it should be, but the overall system allows select control to filter all the way down to the most mundane of tasks at the local plant level. Indeed plant personnel are encouraged to provide opinions regarding their task center. The more each task center’s personnel become involved in The Project, the better the odds for the realization of a successful effort.
Let the work begin!.. The Plant Floor is the primary focus of any project that is intent on overall improvement in a local plant operation. The sequence of events within the plant operation always begins in the Receiving area, and will end in the Shipping area. Actually, as noted previously, the real beginning comes from the Office. The activity of Plant Office tasks (Sales, Order Processing, Manufacturing Orders, etc.) should provide some preliminary insight to plant floor tasks and will be forwarded to the Plant Floor in some form. The Receiving area is where the Plant Floor tasks will begin.
The bulk of manufacturing operations begin with raw materials and they produce finish products. Specifically in the case of American Hydraulics, the best term to describe would be “re-manufactured”, since the raw materials is made up of items that are worn from usage and will be rebuilt to a “same-as-new” product, thus providing considerable savings to the original users. (Note: I had exposure to “re-manufacturing” several years ago at Springfield Remanufacturing Corp. – it may be worthy of some personnel time to review their process and procedures.)
As with virtually any project analysis, initially there are few, if any, answers and a lot of questions… questions that will be required in order to better understand each task centers’ activities… and to review the forms and means of communicating the “ins” and “outs” associated with each task center. As stated previously, initially there are no answers and only questions. Specific to the potential project involving American Hydraulics, the answers to questions will undoubtedly spawn more questions. From limited exposure, the primary product and operation involves re-manufacturing of Cushioning Units (CU). Basic investigation has revealed that there are dozens, if not hundreds of CUs models, varying in piston size, travel distance (stroke length), coupler size, and probably more. Identifying terms to be better understood as part of better understanding the specific CUs to be re-manufactured. Some questions from this area may have been answered during the Plant Office’s tasks review, but certainly not all.
Examples of Questions for Receiving area:
1. Do you know what CUs are coming in and from whom?.. how many and what model numbers?.. how are they reported?
2. Do you receive against a Receiving order or a Bill-of-Lading in some form.. from the shipper?
3. How is the container marked and/or how are individual units marked? Are they serialized?
4. Are they staged for quality control / inspection and reported as such or (what happens next)?
As noted, there will be numerous questions at each task level.
1. Do you know what CUs are coming in and from whom?.. how many and what model numbers?.. how are they reported?
2. Do you receive against a Receiving order or a Bill-of-Lading in some form.. from the shipper?
3. How is the container marked and/or how are individual units marked? Are they serialized?
4. Are they staged for quality control / inspection and reported as such or (what happens next)?
As noted, there will be numerous questions at each task level.
- Disassembly
- Cleaning
- Inspection
- Replacement
- Reclamation and Machining
- Assembly
- Testing
Without on-hand and on-site interaction, any further analysis at this point would be educated speculation.