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.
Balancing customer orders, inventory, and profitability is one of the biggest challenges manufacturers face. Learn how SIOP helps align sales, operations, and finance to improve customer service, optimize inventory, accelerate cash flow, and support profitable growth.
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.
Lisa Anderson's press release about the reshaping of supply chains was picked up by CSCMP. Rightsizing and balancing inventories is becoming essential to success especially with increasing interest rates.
Effective inventory planning can help manufacturers navigate rising logistics costs, supply chain disruptions and inflation. Learn how demand planning, replenishment and advanced planning strategies can improve customer service, working capital and resilience.
Production scheduling is the bridge between planning and execution. Learn how disciplined scheduling practices can improve customer service, increase operational efficiency, reduce inventory, and help manufacturers turn supply chain chaos into predictable, profitable performance.
Since the pandemic, it has been a constant battle to ensure material availability, let alone to proactively manage cost and service. Even the most proactive and successful clients have experienced brief shortages of key materials and extended lead-times. The rest have been plagued with these issues.
Rapid growth creates opportunities, but manufacturers need the capacity and planning capabilities to deliver. Strong demand, capacity, production, inventory, and materials planning — supported by SIOP and what-if scenario analysis — helps companies anticipate constraints, improve customer service, and scale profitably.
Every production planner has the challenging job of managing a complex set of conflicting priorities - meeting customer requested ship dates and new product trials, supporting manufacturing and logistics performance objectives, and addressing finance's objectives as it relates to inventory levels and cash flow.
