Demand driven Priority Management System for MAC-PAC XE

Advanced Demand-driven Production Management

MAC -PAC XE Priority Manager (Priority Manager) is a proven demand-driven priority management system that can be quickly deployed using the data already residing in MAC -PAC XE.

Based on the concept of Rapid Priority Management ( RPM ) and winner of the 2003 APICS Award for Innovation, Priority Manager helps manufacturers develop and execute demand-driven production schedules that effectively pull the right material through the factory and supply chain to ensure on-time shipment of customer orders. It helps production and materials professionals achieve this by providing them with better information for decision-making and more time for communication.

TODAY'S CHALLENGE

In today's highly competitive markets, customers expect consistently rapid and on-time delivery. But volatile demand and increasing product variety make production planning a challenge, to say the least. Manufacturers are striving to gain the agility to respond in this dynamic environment while at the same time improving profitability. More> (open window or link to page with this paragraph and the two below)

MAC -PAC XE, like any robust ERP system, does a good job of planning, but still leaves production planners, schedulers, buyers, and supervisors with a difficult job when it comes to ensuring that the right orders are pulled through the factory when it is time to execute the plan. True demand-driven priorities are often hidden by various planning factors, multi-level BOMs, and ever-changing customer orders.

What is needed is a specialized toolset that uses the data already in MAC -PAC XE in a new way to provide information that helps plant personnel bridge the gap between planning and execution to more effectively pull orders through the plant in support of actual customer demand. A toolset that can be deployed quickly and easily without the need for a lot of scarce IT resources, a large project team, or new data entry processes. That toolset is MAC -PAC XE Priority Manager.

Fast, Affordable Deployment

Priority Manager is different from any high-impact tool you have seen before. It is easy to deploy and easy to afford while delivering significant results.

Priority Manager extracts and uses the data you already have .
Rapid implementation means you can start using the base Priority Manager system within as little as a few weeks. You don't need a big project team or a lot of support from IT.
A low annual subscription fee makes the cost of Priority Manager both affordable and predictable.

Capabilities Overview

Priority Manager includes a wide range of capabilities to provide:

Clear Visibility of True Priorities
Pull-based Scheduling Support
Simulation and Analysis

Clear Visibility of True Priorities

Priority Manager supports a straightforward methodology which applies project management-like techniques to the process of production management. It provides planners, buyers, schedulers, and production supervisors with visibility of true demand-driven priorities so they can proactively manage critical events and focus available resources on those activities that must take place in order to insure shipment of customer orders as promised.

A specialized database eliminates the time-consuming ‘data-chasing' activities typically performed by planners, schedulers, and buyers every day without Priority Manager.
Demand-driven queries and reports make manufacturing and purchasing priorities clear by showing exactly what supply activities must take place at all levels for orders to ship as promised.
Alerts provide planners with early warnings to problems that may require action in order to insure an as-promised shipment.
strong>Follow-up notices draw attention to properly scheduled activities which, if not monitored regularly, may “fall through the cracks”, causing a promised ship date to be missed.

Pull-based Scheduling Support

Priority Manager provides outputs that can be used to communicate demand-driven priorities directly to the shop floor and suppliers, therefore helping pull critical material through the factory and supply chain. Priority Manager even provides demand-driven priorities for the receiving and shipping departments so everyone involved knows exactly what is most important every day.

Work center priority reports help schedulers prevent critical manufactured item shortages by ensuring each work center produces the items that are required to meet actual customer demand each day.
Vendor priority reports help planner/buyers eliminate critical purchased item shortages by keeping suppliers continually apprised of the minimum quantities that must be delivered in order to meet actual customer demand.
Inbound supply chain priority reports help buyers set shipping container delivery priorities based on purchase material requirements and the content of individual containers.
Receiving priority reports help speed critical items to their point of use as soon as received.
Shipping priority reports help the shipping department, customer service and production management ensure that nothing “falls through the cracks” creating last minute surprises.
Advanced Production Scheduling further improves throughput and productivity by suggesting a near-term production sequence based on similarity of processes and/or product characteristics while considering constraints such as machine or production line capacity and tooling. Based on Priority Manager's demand-driven priorities, the schedules retain a “pull-based” nature while reducing setups as much as possible.

Simulation and Analysis Tools

Priority Manager provides production and supply chain personnel with a wide range of tools to help quickly determine the impact of inevitable changes to demand, supply, and capacity that come up every day.

Order impact simulations facilitate fact-based demand management decisions regarding priority orders.
Shipment date simulation determines every customer order's actual projected ship date while relieving customer service and production control of the need to manually track each order's status.
Analysis tools help factory personnel validate near-term plans and quickly determine the impact of capacity or material supply problems as they arise.