Connecting Customer Demand, Capacity Planning, Scheduling, and ERP Technology to Support Growth
For engineer-to-order manufacturers, customer service depends on far more than production schedules. Customer demand changes. Installation dates move. Engineering requirements evolve. Capacity constraints emerge. Labor availability fluctuates. Priorities shift daily. The challenge is not simply producing products. The challenge is creating visibility across the organization so that sales, engineering, project management, planning, manufacturing, and operations can make informed decisions and execute effectively. This was the opportunity facing Frazier Industrial Company.
As North America’s leading manufacturer of industrial storage rack systems, Frazier serves customers with highly customized solutions across multiple manufacturing facilities throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. As the company continued to grow, leadership recognized the need for stronger planning capabilities, greater visibility into operational performance, and improved alignment between customer demand and manufacturing execution. To support these objectives, Frazier partnered with LMA Consulting Group.
The Challenge: Improving Visibility Across the Order Fulfillment Process
Frazier’s team consistently did whatever was required to support customers and meet installation commitments. Customer service remained a top priority. However, achieving those results often required significant effort because visibility into production schedules, order fulfillment forecasts, capacity, and future demand was limited. Planning information was spread across spreadsheets, homegrown systems, and manually developed schedules. Production schedules were created and distributed manually. Order priorities changed frequently. Capacity visibility was limited. Sales, project management, and operations often lacked a common view of future requirements and operational capabilities. Leadership wanted a more proactive approach that would improve decision-making while reducing the effort required to support customer commitments.
Starting with the Master Plan
LMA began by assessing planning processes, operational workflows, system utilization, scheduling practices, and order fulfillment capabilities. One critical finding emerged quickly. The foundation for success would be establishing greater control over the master production plan. Final assembly schedules drove fabrication requirements, material demand, labor requirements, and ultimately customer deliveries. By focusing first on the master planning process and final assembly schedule, the organization could create greater stability throughout the operation. As planning processes and ERP enhancements were implemented, production schedules became more consistent and predictable.
Improving Capacity and Labor Planning
One of the most significant challenges involved understanding true operational capacity.
The environment was highly dynamic:
- Multiple production steps including fabrication, weld, paint, and final assembly
- Cross-trained employees moving between priorities
- Variable staffing levels
- Frequent schedule changes
- High order complexity
- Constant shifts in customer requirements
LMA worked with the team to develop practical approaches for evaluating capacity and labor availability. The goal was not perfect precision. The goal was gaining a directionally correct understanding of capacity constraints so bottlenecks could be identified and addressed before they impacted customer commitments. This improved visibility allowed leadership to make more proactive decisions regarding labor, scheduling, and production priorities.
Leveraging ERP More Effectively
Technology was another critical component of the solution. Rather than replacing systems, LMA focused on enhancing the company’s existing ERP capabilities.
The team worked closely with Information Technology, Planning, Scheduling, and Operational leaders to develop:
- Enhanced planning functionality
- Exception reporting
- Capacity visibility tools
- Operational dashboards
- Performance metrics
- Order fulfillment reporting
These improvements gave employees access to information that was previously difficult to obtain while creating greater confidence in operational decision-making.
Stabilizing Fabrication Scheduling
As visibility improved within final assembly, attention shifted upstream into fabrication scheduling. The organization needed better tools to manage production priorities and improve schedule stability. LMA initially developed dispatch reporting that improved visibility and scheduling discipline. However, the team recognized that manually creating highly detailed machine-level schedules would require significant additional planning resources. Rather than adding headcount, LMA collaborated with operational leaders to develop an automated planning tool that generated detailed production schedules while still allowing planners to apply expertise and judgment where needed. The result was greater scheduling visibility without increasing planning resources.
Creating Executive Visibility Through SIOP (Sales Inventory Operations Planning)
Perhaps one of the most important long-term outcomes was the development of a SIOP-style planning framework. The executive team needed visibility beyond today’s production schedule.
They needed to understand:
- Future demand
- Capacity constraints
- Revenue opportunities
- Labor requirements
- Material commitments
- Capital investment needs
LMA developed executive planning information that provided a forward-looking view of the business. This enabled leadership to proactively allocate production, support growth opportunities, optimize costs, plan capital expenditures, and improve strategic decision-making. The organization moved from reacting to challenges toward proactively managing future opportunities.
The Results
Through its partnership with LMA Consulting Group, Frazier Industrial achieved meaningful improvements across planning, scheduling, and operational execution:
- Improved visibility into customer demand and operational capabilities
- Enhanced order fulfillment forecasting
- Stabilized production schedules
- Improved master planning processes
- Better capacity and labor planning
- Proactive identification of bottlenecks
- Enhanced ERP utilization and functionality
- Developed dashboards, metrics, and exception reporting
- Improved fabrication scheduling visibility
- Created automated planning tools that reduced manual effort
- Implemented executive-level SIOP planning capabilities
- Improved cross-functional alignment across sales, engineering, project management, planning, and operations
Most importantly, the organization gained a more connected view of customer demand, operational capabilities, and future requirements.
Visibility Drives Performance
As manufacturers become more complex, visibility becomes a competitive advantage. Organizations that successfully connect customer demand, planning, capacity, scheduling, and execution are better positioned to improve customer service, support growth, and drive operational performance. By partnering with LMA Consulting Group, Frazier Industrial transformed its planning and execution capabilities, creating greater visibility across the business and a stronger foundation for continued growth.
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