The Problem

Manufacturing is not a piece of cake. No matter what anyone tells you. It is shot through with problem after problem.

• First, you have to get the Marketing people to sit still and stop changing the sales forecast every two days.
• Then there are those unexpected “big orders” that your persistent sales force insists on booking (usually near the end of the quarter).
• Let’s not forget those heart-rending cancellations that threaten to leave you with all sorts of unneeded inventory.
• And of course, Customer Service and Engineering are always trying to raid your raw materials inventory for spares they forgot to forecast.

Meanwhile, the bad news.

• Purchasing says that lead times for some critical components have just dramatically increased.
• Inventory reports that you don’t have quite as many of some items as you thought, and on others you’re well overstocked.
• On the other hand, most of your open purchase orders are being delivered late and over cost.

No matter what unprintable form your analysis of this situation may take, your problems can be reduced to four basic questions (THE BIG FOUR):

1. What do I have to make?
2. When do I have to make it?
3. What do I have to buy?
4. When do I have to buy it?

You can answer these questions yourself if you have one product with a few components and only a few orders. However, it doesn’t take very many orders, components, or products before you lose control trying to manage your business manually or with increasingly complex spreadsheets.

The ideal solution to these problems is an integrated, automated manufacturing system that includes a Material Requirements Planning (MRP) module. The ideal MRP system answers THE BIG FOUR by:

• First looking at the total demand for end items.
• Next adding in all components and subassemblies needed to build the end items.
• Then subtracting any items already in finished goods, raw materials, work in process, and open purchase orders.
• Finally, providing answers to THE BIG FOUR by printing beautiful, time-sequenced reports that show all the “make” and “buy” information you need to create and execute successful procurement and production plans.

The Further Problem

Unfortunately, implementation of nearly all manufacturing systems requires a number of prerequisites that can add up to a massive commitment on your part in time, money, and additional people.

To answer THE BIG FOUR, most MRP systems need a lot of additional software. These sub-systems can often include:

• Bill of materials processor
• On-line raw materials inventory
• Work-in-process
• Sales order entry
• Finished goods inventory
• Purchasing
• Shop floor control
• Forecasting

…and perhaps several auxiliary subsystems, including:

• Receiving
• Kitting
• Accounting
• Labor routing
• Shipping
• Labor distribution

 

The Right Solution

Because the benefits of an MRP system are so great, MRP has become a requirement rather than just an attractive option for nearly every manufacturing concern. So a computerized MRP system – of one kind or another – is probably essential for a company like yours.

Meet E-Z-MRP

E-Z-MRP is an advanced MRP system that offers the benefits of a large-scale MRP system at a small fraction of the investment in time, money, hardware, software, and people. Implementation of E-Z-MRP is as simple as most other systems are difficult.

• E-Z-MRP is so easy to operate that no additional hiring of specially trained staff is needed.
• E-Z-MRP reduces implementation time from 18 months to as little as 18 days through its simple operation.
• The hardware requirements for E-Z-MRP probably already exist in your company. A copy of Microsoft’s Access 2003 or later is desirable, but E-Z-MRP has a run-time version which eliminates even the requirement for Access.
• The cost of E-Z-MRP is a fraction of other available packages that offer similar capabilities.

E-Z-MRP’s Unique Supply Side/Demand Side Approach

At first glance, all MRP systems require what appears to be a bewildering array of data from several different functional areas of the company – Document Control, Production Control, Sales and Marketing, Purchasing, Inventory, etc. But E-Z-MRP’s novel approach organizes all of this data into two broad groups: Supplies and Demands.

SUPPLIES consist of:

• INVENTORIES
• PURCHASE ORDERS
• WORK–IN–PROCESS
• PLANNED WORK ORDERS

DEMANDS are:

• SALES ORDERS
• FORECASTS
  … for end items, spares, and warranty items
• SAFETY STOCK

All of this supply and demand information must be entered into your system – usually a very tedious process. However, E-Z-MRP eases you through this task with a method that is fast, powerful, simple, and highly organized – all of this information is entered through just two simple forms.

E-Z-MRP then takes this information and summarizes it into two comprehensive reports: the Supply Side and Demand Side reports.

Answering the Question – what do I do today?

But knowing what your supplies and demands are is only part of the answer. What you really want to know is:

1. What do I have to make?
2. When do I have to make it?
3. What do I have to buy?
4. When do I have to buy it?

The answer to these questions are presented in E-Z-MRP’s “What To Make” and “What To Buy” reports.

These two reports tell you at every point in the future exactly what your projected level of inventory is for each part, and show clearly the order dates where your work orders need to be released or your purchase orders need to be placed.

** ACTION ** and ** LATE ** notices on each line where inventory falls below zero ensure that no orders will be forgotten. And ** EXCESS ** notices show you where you are carrying excess inventory based on optional the maximum inventory field.

The Make and Buy reports can be sorted in several ways and can be filtered on almost every data item in the report. So you can tailor the contents of these reports to your exact needs.

Knowing what you need to do every day will give you the competitive advantage you need to win and keep business. Contact Weeks Software Solutions, LLC today to find out just how easy it will be.