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Perfect Gepro, using all data referring to an order inserted with Perfect Gea, optimizes processing sequences of all centres (cutting, grinding, etc.) taking into account delivery date, material dimensions, extra work required and delivery areas. A cutting plan (that can always been modified by the operator) is suggested. Considering the defined plan when inserting a new order, the system suggests the delivery date as if all activities foreseen for the order processing have to be carried out after the already scheduled ones.
Together with Perfect Monit, the module for production monitoring, this module detects orders progressing by terminals with bar code in the processing centres. This Monitoring allows estimating correctly production potential of each resource for production programming and cost estimate.
Production planning
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When an order is loaded, any lack of material or the current use of the material for previous orders is automatically displayed thanks to the automatic control of the stocks; the system displays automatically the possible delivery date as well, taking into account the current production plan and the priorities defined up to that moment. |
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The possibility to display at any time the order progress enables to answer customers immediately, without the need to go to the production department and ask the several workers about it. The system provides the planned delivery date in real time and, more in detail, the department that is currently processing each order line. |
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The production scheduler creates a plan of activities for each resource. It optimizes the total company’s cost, taking into account both real costs (overtime, space occupied by material) and estimated costs (customer dissatisfaction when the order is delivered behind schedule). |
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In particular, it determines:
1. A better use of the space for certain critical areas, minimizing the space occupied in the warehouse areas for semi-finished products.
2. A better management of the deliveries to more remote areas, as the production plan takes into account the delivery area and arranges the delivery of an order when there is a lorry headed there.
3. A better integration with the cutting optimization. While with a traditional management system you can send complete orders to the optimizer, through the decomposition of orders into activities, the single lines are considered for the determination of a cutting "project": for example, if an order contains pieces to be tempered and others that need not to be tempered, it is better that the pieces to be tempered are cut before the others, so that all pieces are then ready for shipment more or less at the same time.
4. A greater customer satisfaction (immediate answer about the planned delivery dates, both upon placement of order and at any time thereafter, greater reliability of the estimates made, immediate notification of any delays, guarantee that nothing is "forgotten").
5. A better management of shifts and overtime.
6. In general, a reduction of company’s costs and a greater efficiency. |
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The plan drawn up identifies a certain number of indicators of the good company’s progress: the level of use of overtime; the number of free hours for each resource; the rate of saturation of resources over time, this same rate of saturation of resources taking into account only the activities that are already behind schedule. Even though the last two indicators seem similar, they are, as a matter of fact, opposed: the first should be equal to 100% for all resources (the company must produce at its maximum level to cover its fixed costs), the second should be equal to about zero (no activity should be behind schedule with respect to the date established with the customer). The two graphs together provide a fairly clear picture of the company’s progress. |
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By checking the company’s progress, you can outline different corrective actions: increase (or reduction) in overtime or production shifts; purchase (or release) of new resources in terms of workers and machines; price increase (or reduction), taking particularly into account the critical points of specific resources; decisions about the policy to be adopted with agents, preventive maintenance planning. |
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The continuous monitoring of production and the printing of orders expected to be delivered later than the foreseen date eliminate any possible risk of neglecting an order, although small. |
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The monitoring of significant production events (activity start and finish date, pauses, maintenance works, breaks, operator specific notices) makes employees and production control procedures faster. |
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The "tracking" of all production events allows analysing costs in a more detailed way, namely:
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1. "Estimated" and real data adjustment (production capacity linked to the material resource and category), with a consequent improvement of production time ad estimate adjustment.
2. The control (with appropriate prints) of the productivity of each resource for the different categories of material (useful to evaluate when a machine starts to have problems) and of each worker (useful to evaluate the use of "incentives") during the selected period.
3. Evaluation of the incidence of "breakages".
4. The control of breaks for maintenance (planning them in the near future or considering any machine replacement). |
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The complete automatic management of replacement orders in case of breakages enables to streamline the internal procedures for the management of these events. |
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The automatic control of the whole production enables a better integration of the production subsystem in the company procedures and provides a useful aid for the ISO 9000 procedures. |
| Cost analysis and budgeting aid |
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The system enables to perform an immediate and effective control of the costs through the comparison between the estimated duration and the real total duration of each activity and order. This enables both to evaluate losses and profits and to establish, for example, whether the duration of a certain activity is longer than estimated and if this is due to valid reasons or not (e.g. particular dimensions or excessive weight). |
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The production capacity progressively achieved after a first period of collection of monitoring data is no longer an hypothesis but becomes a real production datum useful not only to better estimate production times, but, above all, to better define the budgets. |
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Improvement in the working environment. |
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The interchangeability of the production supervisor during holidays or sick leaves: the automation of controls facilitates the supervision even on the part of less skilled personnel and makes the absence of the main supervisor less critical. |
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The automatic control of the system reduces the stress of production manager and operators. |
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