As geopolitical and economic risks rise, executives become more concerned. Proactive clients are taking action to boldly invest where it makes sense while aggressively focusing on inventory and cost reduction of non-value added items/ work and also ensuring high customer service levels.
Although production and materials planning can be overlooked in its importance in most companies if going smoothly, it is cornerstone to success.
Clients are struggling to keep up with customer's changing requests. Order backlogs remain relatively high (depending on the industry), but customers are pushing orders out at the last minute, pulling orders in without notice, adding future potential orders, and changing requirements on the fly. Production is scrambling to keep up.
Production planning software is a manufacturing solution that helps you plan for and supervise essential workflows in the production process. Lisa Anderson gives her tips on what you should look for.
Manufacturing is in a state of flux. After seven straight months of contraction in manufacturing, it is not surprising manufacturers are thinking about cutting back. On the other hand, in many industries, manufacturers continue to have a robust backlog and are growing faster than their capacity.
Making the appropriate business decisions will make or break success. Executives get paid the big bucks to make these decisions. Unfortunately, one poor decision can outweigh thousands of good ones rapidly. SIOP (Sales Inventory Operations Planning), also known as S&OP, is a tool that will optimize these tradeoffs for effective decision making.
Manufacturing is on a downward trend after eight months of PMI (purchasing manager's index) below 50. It dropped to 46 in June. China's manufacturing also shrank for a third month in a row to a PMI of 49. Yet manufacturers backlogs remain relatively robust in many industries, leading executives perplexed on what to do about capacity shortfalls.
The best companies focus on production scheduling. Even though Production Schedulers aren't typically highly paid positions, the function will make or break your ability to serve customers, improve operational performance and accelerate cash flow. Thus, it should be a key priority if you want to achieve profitable growth.
In an environment defined by volatility and rising expectations, predictability has become a competitive advantage. Companies that consistently deliver on revenue, service, and profitability don’t rely on reactive decision-making; instead, they operate with a disciplined, forward-looking planning process. A well-designed SIOP (Sales, Inventory & Operations Planning) playbook provides the [...]
At its simplest, labor scheduling is determining which people (and which skills) you should have at which sites at which work centers at what time (shift) to ensure the right products can be delivered to the right customer at the right time.
