• Lean Operations
• Management Performance Factors
• Effective ERP Systems Use
• Incoming Materials Planning
• Effective Corrective Action
• Managing Lean Operations

Lean Operations expands lean manufacturing concepts to implement totally integrated business practices throughout the enterprise. Integration of your Quality Management System (QMS), your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System, and your true business practices are essential to eliminate the conflicting activities and duplication of effort that many companies experience.

An assessment is conducted to develop a profile of your enterprise and to highlight major improvement opportunities.

A problem-solving approach helps to alleviate employee concerns through full participation in the lean transformation.

A lean operation uses value stream mapping to identify waste and value.

Customer and supplier involvement are key to enhancing the effectiveness of the entire supply chain through better understanding of customer needs and better communication of expected supplier and subcontractor requirements.

Management Performance Factors are established to provide operating parameters for today in an environment that facilitates continual future improvement. These factors recognize the need for production/build flexibility while limiting WIP inventory. Another factor manages the time buffer so that on-time delivery is assured while finished goods inventory is minimized. Yet another factor facilitates production rescheduling while minimizing raw materials inventory.

ERP Systems typically have many features that can be fully integrated into a lean environment. Forecasting systems can communicate expected materials requirements so suppliers are in a better position to provide the needed materials without maintaining a large inventory. Auto replenishment is replaced with Production Planning tools. Fixed cycle time tools replace backwards-scheduling algorithms. Effective capacity requirements analysis methods ensure that production personnel are aware of and ready for resource fluctuations.

Incoming Materials Planning methods are implemented to improve the delivery performance, reducing the occurrences of production that is affected by materials shortages. Four stages of materials planning and follow-up are used to ensure that materials needs are communicated quickly to suppliers, to ensure that expected delivery dates do not conflict with scheduled production, and to ensure that materials are received at the agreed time.

Effective Corrective Action processes improve the focus of the organization on business process improvements to prevent recurring or potential problems while ensuring that specific customer problems are resolved. A seven-step process addresses both the highlighted problem and the systemic weakness that allowed the problem to occur.

Managing Lean Operations uses customer focus to reduce costs (direct and support), reduce inventory, improve on-time delivery, and reduce time-to-market. Synergy of the ERP Systems, QMS, and the real business processes are managed using the established management factors in a continual improvement environment.

The benefits of effective Operations Management are:

• Continually improving performance factors
• Reduced inventory
• Reduced time-to-market
• Increased flexibility
• Quality improvement
• Improved communications
• Reduced support costs
• Less wasted production time
• Production that “just happens”

If you would like an Operations Assessment to determine a strategy for achieving these benefits, email opStrat Solutions or phone (613) 692-3024.