After a very successful pilot, Cincinnati Incorporated is now implementing MAC-PAC XE Priority Manager. Based on the award-winning OTTO (‘On-Time Orders’) software product developed by Systems Plus Inc., Priority Manager is designed to support the principles of Rapid Priority Management (RPM). RPM is an emerging approach to manufacturing execution that analyzes and organizes supply/demand information already existing in systems such as MAC-PAC XE to clearly identify the near-term actions operations managers need to take in order to ship orders on time, reduce expediting activity, and minimize inventory levels. Priority Manager brings these capabilities to users of MAC-PAC XE. In addition to Cincinnati Incorporated, Priority Manager is also already in use by Link-Belt, Gilbarco Veeder-Root, Cooper B-Line, and Camfill Farr.

Cincinnati Incorporated manufactures and supports laser-cutting systems, press brakes, shears, gap-frame presses, and powdered metal compacting and sizing presses.

“We were looking for a tool that would help us increase the velocity of our quote-to-cash cycle,” states Cincinnati Incorporated’s Production Manager, Larry Bumgardner. Steve Lieland, Cincinnati Incorporated’s IS Director, sought TDCI’s input on how to best meet the velocity objective. According to Steve: “TDCI suggested we look at Priority Manager, so we had them in to show it to us. The introduction – which included a live demo with our own data – really opened some eyes. We decided to do a pilot and started actually using it in our daily production control process almost right away. The benefits were apparent immediately.”

Priority Manager has already eliminated the need for what was a regular daily production control meeting. Production Control supervisors are now using Priority Manager themselves to identify priorities and bottlenecks, and work them out one-on-one with other supervisors and buyers. Working on an exception basis now, hours of research have been eliminated and the meeting is held on an as needed basis.

As part of their summary presentation, the evaluation team illustrated the increased visibility provided by Priority Manager by showing a Priority Manager action list side-by-side with a standard MAC-PAC XE dispatch list for a selected work center. The action list clearly augmented the dispatch list to show exactly what the priorities were – item and quantity – in order to ship product. The team concluded that this added information was exactly what was needed to improve shipment performance for both new machines and repair parts.

Cincinnati Incorporated has licensed the base Priority Manager product along with add-on modules for Production Management (with dynamic order status update from MAC-PAC XE), capacity management, and simulation. The simulation module gives Cincinnati the ability to rapidly determine the earliest practical delivery date and impact of a potential new order before committing to the customer.

If you would like to learn more about how MAC-PAC XE Priority Manager could help you improve on-time shipment performance and reduce expediting, contact your TDCI account representative or Gary Addison at gaddison@tdci.com or 614-781-2325 ext. 101.