Ultimately, growth is what all manufacturers aim for; however, as you grow, you face several problems that accompany this process. The informal methods and solutions that helped you to manage your operations in a small shop become significant sources of problems. At the core of these issues lies production order management.
Controlling production orders will be crucial for growing manufacturers to continue their successful growth. This is where x2x Lite Manufacturing comes into play. It is an elegant and flexible tool designed to give your manufacturer proper control over its operations without unnecessary complexity.
With increasing order volume, errors can easily occur. Without the centralization of data, your orders go missing, materials are assigned improperly, and your shop floor becomes blind. To avoid such problems, you should follow the best practices of production order management with the help of x2x Lite Manufacturing.
1. Automated Order Creation Using Integrated BOM’s
Manual data entry is an inefficiency and an opportunity for mistakes. By using x2x Lite Manufacturing, you get an ability to create production orders from Bill of Materials (BOM’s). It will make sure that all parts necessary for assembly are automatically associated with the order.
Best Practice: Maintain your BOM’s up to date using x2x. When you automatically create a production order, you work with one and the same database without need to compare any paperwork.
2. Real-Time Checking of Material Availability
Nothing makes your heart colder than the realization that you have started a production order, but you are missing some inexpensive part which stops the entire production line. x2x Lite Manufacturing will let you check material availability at the very moment when you are creating a production order.
Best Practice: Implement a practice of checking material availability via system now of creation of production order. It will give you the ability to warn your purchasing department about potential shortages. Also this information provides them enough time to obtain parts without expedited shipping.
3. Make Material Control Simpler with Automated Consumption
Material shrinkage often occurs right on the shop floor when the employee takes parts from the box without posting any activity. Thus, your system inventory differs too much from physical inventory. x2x Lite Manufacturing offers to make the process of posting consumption and output easier.
Best Practice: Use the opportunity offered by the system to automate material consumption (backflushing) according to your output reports. Once the employee informs about completed items (100 pieces), the system automatically consumes required amount of raw material from your inventory.
The Bottom Line
Using these techniques in x2x Lite Manufacturing will change your shop floor. From being a black box into a well-coordinated operation. That allows you to be able to commit yourself to deliver on specific deadlines. Save you from having to waste time searching for missing parts, and have less inventory.
You do not have to invest millions of dollars in an unnecessarily complicated ERP module just to get production order management under control. Using the flexibility of x2x Lite Manufacturing along with the best practices will provide a strong base for your company both currently and in the future.
