Top Ten Problems Solved by SAP Business One in Manufacturing.
Problem #6: Inefficient Production Scheduling
This is the sixth in our series of blogs exploring ten of the most common challenges facing manufacturers, and how SAP Business One helps address them. In the previous post, we examined quality control issues in manufacturing. In this blog, we turn to inefficient production scheduling and ways SAP Business One can help.
The Problem
Inefficiency comes in many forms. Inefficient production scheduling may reveal itself in a number of ways:
- frequent interruptions to planned production
- poor sequencing of jobs
- unanticipated bottlenecks
- shortage of critical components or ingredients
- departments or processes not working in sync
And the causes of these inefficiencies?
SMEs often rely on manual systems to manage production. Spreadsheets, whiteboards, emails, and verbal updates are easy to implement and cost little. But they have many drawbacks:
- poor visibility of the knock-on effect of decisions
- decisions based on inaccurate or out-of-date information
- excessive dependence on key individuals
- do not scale well
With manual systems, scheduling is reactive and more akin to firefighting. In a word: inefficient.
How SAP Business One can streamline production scheduling
SAP Business One replaces manual systems with a more efficient and proactive solution for planning based on accurate data, available materials and realistic capacity constraints.
SAP Business One simplifies production scheduling with an easy-to-use visualisation and production optimisation tool that provides a global view of all production and resources. It takes account of dependencies and resource constraints. And is integrated into the wider SAP Business One ecosystem to align production with other areas of your business, such as purchasing, sales, and the shop floor.
Key features:
- Plan resource availability, for example, the planning of machine time to include scheduled downtime for maintenance
- Differentiate resources based on capability
- Machines and operators can be allocated to groups that must be used for specified jobs in a process
- Where multiple resources can be used for the same job, SAP can automate the allocation of work based on availability rather than membership of a group
By providing visibility across sales, inventory, purchasing and production, SAP Business One enables more realistic schedules, fewer disruptions and more reliable customer deliveries. For many SMEs, that translates into lower costs, improved efficiency and increased production throughput without adding additional resources.
Take the next step
These are just some of the ways that SAP Business One can help your business. To find more, download a copy of our SAP Business One Beginners Guide – Manufacturing or take a virtual tour.
In the next blog in this series, we focus on the causes and impact of late deliveries.
By Edward Bentley