Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) Software Implementation

For manufacturing firms, being able to cut production costs is key to staying competitive. Of course, one of the largest controllable costs for many companies is waste. Whether you have idle employees, production lines running below capacity, or you simply have too much inventory and not enough orders, controlling the places where your company wastes money will help you to control your production costs and bring profits up.

If you don't already have one, implementing APS software is a good way to keep track of every aspect of your production process. These systems track everything from employee time to units produced. An APS system is helpful to track production and make real time strategic decisions.

Tracking and Data Collection

In order to determine where to cut costs, you first have to know where you're spending money. In many manufacturing companies, this is done by analyzing the production process and coming up with a cost per unit that includes materials, labor, and overhead. The problem, as many experienced plant managers know, is that there are rarely good estimates for these costs.

Material costs have to include a certain amount of waste, but it can be difficult to know which lines are wasting more than others. Labor costs are notoriously difficult to track, since employees rarely can produce a consistent number of products from day to day. Tracking the productivity of maintenance and other "backhouse" employees can be next to impossible. For this reason, most manufacturing managers and analysts simply group the costs of these employees, along with the costs of everything from replacement parts to cleaning supplies in a general overhead category.

Of course, most manufacturers are aware that certain production lines require more maintenance than others, and some employees are more efficient than others. Before APS software, however, it was next to impossible to show this in a quantitative way. APS systems allow a facility to track the exact number, type, and cost of setups; know the exact amount of down time a production line has gone through in the past; and even monitor the production of employees. This is software that gives you the power to quantify everything in the manufacturing process. You'll be able to know your real costs for everything that goes on.

Making Strategic Decisions

Once this data is collected and compiled, it starts to become a lot easier to make strategic decisions about your manufacturing facility. For example, once you know that a particular production line produces a product twice as fast as another you'll be able to easily decide which line should be used under which circumstance. APS software can also make recommendations based on current commitments and product mix. For example, a company can use the data they've collected on run rates and yields to anticipate when a new order could ship without adding labor cost or making other orders late. The software can also anticipate periods of idle time when preventive maintenance can be scheduled without affecting cash flow.

Instead of relying on the hunch of an employee, APS software uses real data to recommend everything from production line scheduling to routine maintenance.