RE: MRP Input -- BPCS-L

Paul

You have asked a lot of questions.
I trying to address those that I can deal with.

Sometimes when looking at one thread I not remember all the introductory
stuff you said that was relevant to your situation in others.

I addressed the Padding topic in a different thread.

As an MIS professional, you probably know that when an end user comes to us
saying this or that not working right, please fix, it can be the case that
the user not understand something, misread symptoms, come to erroneous
conclusions, and the actual cure might have to be something a bit different
than precisely what the end user asked for.

Similar kind of risk when implementing a new application.  You need
thorough understanding of all its interactions before tweaking those
rules.  If something is driving you crazy, and it not seem like BPCS_L
friends getting you to a satisfactory solution, that might be a good reason
to bring in a consultant for 1-2 days.  Tell a professional BPCS consultant
what your problem is, let them spend 1-2 days drilling down on the
problem.  Some of them have satisfaction guaranteed ... they not fix the
problem, you not pay.  They charge hundreds of dollars an hour, but solving
some problems is worth it.
You can find links to prospects at my BPCS documentation
directory.
http://radio.weblogs.com/0107846/stories/2002/11/08/bpcsDocSources.html

We have similar situation implementing parts of ERP.  There is high risk
that some managers look at this as a computer system to install.  The
computer will do everything by magic, in which the users not have to do
anything different ways than they did before this new application
added.  That attitude is why many companies spend millions of dollars
installing some MRP II system, CRM, you name it, that ends up not
working.  Because it is not solely a computer solution.  It is a people
solution in which the computer does most of the work.  But if the business
rules not get changed to work as a team effort with the MRP/CAP logic
system, then you doomed to have lots of problems.

That's why I wrote my MRP Input below.  The kind of attitudes that can be
prevalent in a company, that are Ok to have when you not need MRP to work
right, but can be unacceptable if you need MRP/CAP. One of your statements
seemed to be focusing on only one part of the prerequisites so I thought it
might be constructive to make a list of critical stuff that I am aware of
that needs to be good quality as a pre-requisite to MRP/CAP successful
implementation.

Al Macintyre
BPCS/400 Computer Janitor at http://www.globalwiretechnologies.com/
See Al http://www.ryze.com/view.php?who=Al9Mac
Find BPCS Documentation Suppliers
http://radio.weblogs.com/0107846/stories/2002/11/08/bpcsDocSources.html

Paul wrote

Al,

Not sure how often we'll regen MPS. I thought we'd do a net change daily and
a regen weekly but we might just do a regen daily as it only takes about 25
minutes anyways.

Our MRP buckets are 1 week also.

You raise a lot of other good questions that are really business
best-practices topics for manufactures. Important stuff, but a little beyond
the scope of my MPS implementation. Since MPS/CAP is one of the final
modules we are putting in and we've been running BPCS SFC & CST (along with
most other modules) for years, suffice it to say we have a high degree of
confidence in our inventory accuracy, bom/router & cost data.

I'd sure like to figure out how to "pad" all the manufactured end items with
a day of lead time from the LRDTE (in ECL) though. We've also thought about
adopting a strategy that would ask manufacturing to have all manufactured
items available to ship 5 days prior to the customer request date. (lrdte)

Further reason why I don't want to do the padding in the router. What
happens when management decides we should change the 5 days prior to 3 days
prior? Then I must change every router and alternate router of every item we
manufacture!

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From:  Al Mac

Paul

For MRP MPS to work right, there are many ingredients that have to be very
accurate.

How often do you regenerate MRP MPS?
We do it daily.

How big are your MRP buckets?
Ours are 1 week.

How do you know your data is accurate?
Who is responsible to see that data is kept accurate by area of data?
Does anyone at your company find it neccessary to lie to the system?

Do you run regular checks to make sure no bad data got into the system in
combination?
Some of our checks include:
List customer orders not on an MRP master scheduled item (should not be
any);
List customer orders with price missing (inter-facility are the only ones
that normally should be that way before shipments)
List negative requirements into MRP (one trip wire for requesting a reorg)

If your BOM has errors, what does that do to MRP math?
Your BOM had better be at least 98% accurate., or else it is Garbage In
Garbage Out for your MRP MRS.  Your Routings also need to be pretty
accurate.
How do you manage engineering changes?
Is your engineering data managed in a consistent manner?

How accurate is your Inventory, as measured by cycle counts, proportion of
adjustments needed, and physical inventories?  When you say your physical
is 90% something accurate, does that mean the grand total is within 90% of
what the computer had, where many pluses and minuses cancel?
Are all types of transactions posted in a timely manner?  Is the input
checked?

After JIT600 input, we have a query list of FLT member WORK selecting on
the work station or other criteria of the person who keyed it in, listing
the actual fields populated, which is easier to verify reasonable keying,
than vanilla reports showing what will happen if this is posted.  What do
you use to make sure the data is correct before it goes into the computer,
and is correctly transcribed?

Your inventory should be at least 95% accurate by
item-warehouse-location-combination.
Do you track what inventory you have that you do not need?

How accurate are the scales you use for figuring out your inventory?
How well marked are your containers of materials so that people know they
selecting precisely the correct part?

How much time is spent expediting?

Do you have customers with repetitive orders, like 1000 each week for all
eternity of the same item?
Do you use JIT to schedule production for those orders?

Do you have a policy for how to handle customer orders that are in
violation of lead times?
Is it enforced?

If some customer order has to be pulled up, does it steal materials from a
customer that is not as important for you to keep, that placed order in
ample time to have all their raw materials delivered in time, and are you
able to replenish the stolen material and capacity in time so that neither
customer is cheated on delivery times and quality?

Do you use realistic planning dates, or do you use a planning date of a
year ago so you not have to sweat anything that is past due?

Do you have scrap?  Is it reported properly, or after a production effort,
does the BPCS system THINK there are bits and pieces left over, that were
really scrapped, so that next time MRP runs for the same kind of production
run, it subtracts the bits and pieces left over from the last time, because
it thinks that is inventory you not have to make again?

How do you know your scrap reporting is accurate?
Here is a tip from stuff we have done ... we have bins to contain scrap at
various identifiable locations on the factory floor ... that can be figured
out from labor reporting where the scrap must have ended up ... we use a
field for sample weight ... if we have a container of tiny components, we
know what the empty container weighs, we know how the sample weight system
works ... by weighing container with a lot of tiny parts in it, we can get
a pretty good estimate of the quantity in there.
Well similarly we can do the math on scrap reported by labor ... what is
the weight of that stuff ... compare that with the weight of the containers
with the actual scrap ... do they agree?

Do you monitor causes of scrap and other wastage?
We track scrap by machine, so as to tip us off which machines in most need
of maintenance.

There has to be education for the people using BPCS, so they use it
correctly.
A great system in the hands of people who do not understand the system
means it won't work.

New people hired, people who were trained for one job get moved to a
different area of responsiblity - they should also get BPCS briefing for
the new area.

Do you have regular meetings with staff of manufacturing, production,
inventory, engineering, marketing, finance, quality control?

Do your factory supervisors decide what to make based on a HOT LIST, a list
of promises to customers, or some reports generated off the MRP?

Are you more interested in making parts in quantities appropriate to
getting good labor rates, or in delivering what is needed to meet customer
orders?

How do you figure what needs to be purchased?  Shortage lists scribbled out
by people on shop floor identifying what they have run out of, some kind of
BOM report or SFC350 variant where you run customer requirements through
components, or place customer orders in ample time to get the job done, and
get your POs from the MRP?

And how good is your vendor delivery performance?  If it is worse than 95%,
you better have a small fortune invested in safety stock.

And how good is your performance delivering to your customers?  Let's hope
it is better than 95%.
When you are unable to ship on schedule to meet promises to customers, does
it come as a big surprise on the day it supposed to go out, or do you see
the problem coming in time to try to do something about it?

Is your forecast based on historical sales records or on customer estimated
annual usage?
How good of a job is that input relative to what actually happened?

Can your customers access your web site to check that you are producing to
correct revision level, check on order status and delivery info?

Are you working on continuous improvement in major areas such as:
inventory; productivity; customer service; quality?  After you have made a
major improvement, do you transfer focus to another area, and ignore where
you earlier made improvements?

When you change things, do you implement one modification at a time to
learn what its effects are before you mess with something else?

When you try out some brand new scheme, do you test it to death before
having your company depend on the notion that it is working swell?

Do you have ISO 9000?
When things go wrong, do you experience finger pointing exercises at where
the blame falls?

Do you have good quality manuals on MRP and other aspects of BPCS?
Are they sitting in someone office looking nice on a book shelf, or are
they in the hands of people who actually use them occasionally?
When someone keeps swiping your MRP manual, can you find it when you need
it, or do you get extra copies for people who obviously getting use out of
them?

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