Tag: Manufacturing flow

Synchrono Releases SyncManufacturing Version 8
More Visibility, More Power, More Control for Even the Most Complex Manufacturing Environments

Synchrono® is excited to share what’s new in SyncManufacturing® Version 8, a release shaped by the real-world challenges and ideas of manufacturers like you. With improved operational visibility, smarter controls, streamlined production planning, a modernized technology platform, and several user-driven enhancements, Version 8 delivers a powerful, more intuitive experience across even the most complex manufacturing environments.

Focus on the Metrics that Matter

Version 8 introduces built-in Business Intelligence (BI) Dashboards that turn production data into actionable insights for continuous improvement on the shop floor. Five standard dashboards—Cycle Time Variance, Order Release Adherence, CONLOAD Adherence, On Time to Due Date, and Schedule Adherence—provide an at-a-glance view of how well your operations are performing against plan.
- Cycle Time Variance highlights whether demonstrated cycle times align with planned routings, making it easier to spot inaccurate cycle-time assessments.
- Order Release Adherence shows how closely execution follows system-generated release dates, a key driver of flow and schedule stability.
- CONLOAD™ Adherence focuses on constraint resources, comparing average released load hours to modeled maximum load to show when critical resources are consistently over- or under-released.
- On Time to Due Date segments orders into early, on-time, or late buckets, and can be viewed either as a forward-looking projection on open orders or a retrospective view of demonstrated performance.
- Schedule Adherence tracks how well actual production follows the planned schedule, making it easier to spot batching, cherry picking, and chronic variability that undermine flow and delivery performance.
These dashboards help teams understand not just what is happening, but why it is happening, and because they are built directly into SyncManufacturing, users no longer need to open a separate tool to view, export, or analyze this data.

SyncManufacturing® BI Dashboards share a modern, highly visual design with interactive grids and charts, making it easy to drill into problem orders or resources directly from the same screen.

Gain Greater Workflow Control

SyncManufacturing 8 significantly expands precedence management with new Ad Hoc Precedence, Operation Precedence, and Order Precedence capabilities that allow you to precisely control the sequence in which work is executed across production orders and operations.

Ad Hoc Precedence lets users create dependencies across two or more production orders so that a downstream action cannot begin until a defined upstream step is complete. The SyncManufacturing scheduling engine enforces those relationships throughout the plan.

Operation Precedence allows users to define detailed dependencies between operations across production orders, usually for process dependencies that are not defined within the standard bill of material. The dedicated Operation Precedence screen allows you to add, update, and delete precedence edges (i.e., the link that defines the dependency between two operations in the schedule) at the operation level, providing granular control for scenarios such as shared subassemblies, paired components or serialized assemblies where one operation on a production order must be completed before an operation on another production order may begin.

Order Precedence extends this control to the order level by allowing planners to create dependencies at a less granular level than operations. Users select the relevant production orders, and SyncManufacturing automatically establishes the precedence between the final operation of the first production order and the first operation(s) of the second production order, ensuring that schedules respect critical make-before-assemble or phase-gate relationships.

SyncManufacturing® Version 8 allows users to orchestrate complex workflows as production realities evolve without resorting to offline spreadsheets or manual workarounds.

Achieve End-to-End Visibility

The Production Plan screen has been redesigned in SyncManufacturing Version 8 to present complex order structures, networks, and precedence relationships in a single, cohesive view. The updated interface now supports the latest modeling options—including networks, order, and operation precedence—so planners can see how every element of the plan connects and impacts downstream operations.

Multi-level orders can display rolled-up status along with related precedence edges, which is especially valuable in environments with multi-stage assemblies or nested routings. Information on inputs to each operation is accessible through a bottom drawer that opens on demand, giving users the detail they need on material availability and inputs without leaving the main plan view.

The broadened Network Order Lines capabilities further enhance end-to-end insight by making it easier to understand and manage which orders are tied to which network. From the Network Maintenance screen, the new Network Order Lines view shows existing order lines and lets users add or remove additional ones, tightening control over how complex project or network-based orders flow through the system.

Supply allocation and detailed sequencing logic benefit from underlying improvements in performance and data handling, including enhanced algorithms and fixes to support pegging in diverse environments. These changes help ensure that when planners evaluate capacity, material, and due dates, the system can respond more quickly and reliably, even under heavy data volumes.

Production Plan enhancements give planners a single, interactive view of multi-level orders, networks, and precedents so they can assess inputs, status, and downstream impacts at a glance.

Keep Complex Builds in Sync with Supply Allocation

SyncManufacturing Version 8 introduces Supply Allocation, a new capability that keeps complex, multi-level builds synchronized by directly linking every supply order to the specific demand it serves across all BOM levels. Instead of treating each work order as an isolated record with manually maintained dates, Supply Allocation models the entire build as a single, flowing system so upstream and downstream operations move together.

With these direct linkages in place, every child order “knows” which parent order it supports and how its timing affects the overall build, allowing the scheduling engine to orchestrate the whole structure as one extended process. When conditions change—late material, shifting priorities, or capacity constraints—the impact on the entire order structure is visible in a single, coherent view, and dates are automatically recalculated from the true supply–demand relationships rather than ad hoc due-date resets.

The result is a more reliable and efficient operation: supply is tightly aligned with demand so parts always have a clear destination, orders are released to the floor only when they are truly buildable, and planners no longer spend hours stitching together pegging logic across multiple screens and spreadsheets. Organizations gain clearer insight into critical and late paths, reduce stalled work and WIP, and improve on-time delivery by spotting emerging delays early, making Supply Allocation a foundational capability for manufacturers managing deep, multi-level builds in volatile environments.

Be Fast & Future Ready

Under the hood, SyncManufacturing Version 8 delivers significant platform updates that position customers for long-term agility and performance, including upgraded screens for Calendar Maintenance, Group Maintenance, User Maintenance, and other key planning and administration pages.

By rebuilding these screens with new UI components, Version 8 provides a more responsive, fluid experience for planners working with complex order structures, calendars, and networks, with faster loading, smoother interactions, and layouts that adapt cleanly to different window sizes and devices so critical information is visible without excessive scrolling or refreshes. For IT and operations teams, the modern component-based architecture is easier to maintain and extend, enabling new visualization, filtering, and workflow features to be introduced more quickly as business needs evolve.

The new App Settings page consolidates configuration options and provides centralization that streamlines administration for system owners and implementation teams, reducing the time required to manage settings and improving consistency across environments.

Performance and stability enhancements appear throughout the application. CONLOAD™ has been optimized, improving performance for constrained-resource planning scenarios, and the Resource Load Report has been reworked to pre-summarize grouped data, align chart and grid values, and better support analysis of completed operations. Numerous refinements—ranging from grid sorting and scrollbar behavior to improved error messages—help deliver a smoother, more predictable experience for end users.

Key infrastructure components have also been refreshed, including an upgrade for Calendars functionality and new API endpoints to provide clearer status feedback for background jobs. Enhancements to login compatibility messages and new fields like compatible host in plan units ensure users are alerted if attempting to log into incompatible sites, increasing reliability and reducing support overhead.

See the New SyncManufacturing^® in Action

SyncManufacturing Version 8 reflects our ongoing commitment to helping manufacturers orchestrate demand, capacity, and flow across increasingly complex operations. From BI Dashboards that spotlight true performance drivers, to advanced precedence management, redesigned production planning, and a faster, more future-ready platform, this release delivers meaningful value for planners, schedulers, supervisors, and executives alike.

To see how these capabilities can support your specific environment, Synchrono offers live demonstrations that walk through real-world scenarios using the new Version 8 features. Already a customer using SyncManufacturing? Reach out to your Synchrono Consultant to learn more about upgrading.

Request a Demo
February 26, 2026
Time to Revisit Your Constraints

We talk a lot about constraints management in our work with customers who are implementing Demand-Driven Manufacturing (DDM) in their facilities. That’s because constraints management is fundamental for synchronizing the pace of production and keeping the demand (orders) flowing throughout the shop floor. But, our focus is naturally on physical constraints, e.g., that piece of equipment or workstation that is preventing you from delivering on time or offering shorter, more competitive lead times to your customers.

Not Everything is About Production

Those of you who have spent time studying the Theory of Constraints (TOC) in-depth understand that it’s not always all about the production process. Constraints can fall into one of four categories:

Physical – These are the constraints we focus on with technologies like CONLOAD™ that set the pace for production based on the capacity of the physical constraint.

Policy – These constraints dictate how work is performed. Sometimes you can do something about them (e.g., an old company policy that no longer makes sense), and sometimes you can’t (e.g., a regulation that still might not make sense but needs to be followed anyway).

Paradigm – This is a way of thinking that gets in the way of meeting commitments, such as the COO’s resistance to outsourcing processes to other companies even if they can do it faster, better or cheaper than you can.

Market – Put simply, capacity exceeds demand. Remember, TOC emphasizes throughput (The rate at which the system generates “goal units,” Goldratt) and not productivity.

For some manufacturers, the real constraint over the last decade has been their market. Manufacturing production has seen its share of ups and downs in the last ten years. It wasn’t that our facilities couldn’t produce more, many manufacturers just didn’t have the orders to warrant increased production.

Shifting Your Paradigms

Early indications are that many of the market constraints on US manufacturers may be melting away in 2018 through 2020. (Along with a few policy constraints.) Manufacturing GDP is expected to slightly outpace GDP for all industries (2.5%) and grow by 2.8%. (Some analysts are predicting even higher numbers, but like our customers, we prefer to focus on more conservative estimates when doing mid-term forecasting.) The stock market is also at an all-time high, indicating strong investor confidence and more money for investment. Oil prices are expected to remain low, keeping the cost of manufacturing and transportation of goods to market in check.

In other words, it’s time to take your focus off the market constraints you can’t do much about and place it on the constraints that are within your control. If you have outdated policy or paradigm constraints, it’s time to rethink your thinking. If you have physical constraints – leverage them to set the optimal pace for uninterrupted production flow.

Time flies and so do great economies. Don’t let the best market in a decade pass you by without taking advantage of it. If your constraints are physical, here are a few resources that may help:

Video: Manage Manufacturing Constraints and Optimize Production Flow with CONLOAD

White Paper: Metrics That Drive Action

Case Study: GIW Industries

February 5, 2018
Five Key Elements that Drive Manufacturing Flow
If you follow the Demand-Driven Matters blog, you know we specialize in Demand-Driven Manufacturing and have identified the two key components of this method as synchronization and flow. At an enterprise level, synchronization is all about fully connecting your organization to aggregate and share information in real-time. Data from machines, tools, applications, enterprise systems – any data source – is synchronized to drive decision-making (In our view, this also enables the Industrial Internet of Things – IIoT.)

Synchronization is also an enabler of flow. In this post, I want to introduce a discussion around what we’ve identified as the Five Key Elements that Drive Flow in manufacturing production. They are:
1. Control the release – create “Pull” by gating the release of work into production.
2. Synchronize activities – align upstream operations to downstream needs, paying attention to convergence points and final assembly.
3. Continuous improvement – use the first two Elements as a baseline for defining areas for continuous improvement – and never get complacent.
4. Extend to the supply chain – synchronize activities beyond the factory to the extended supply chain.
5. Align metrics – 6 metric categories to monitor for driving action in Demand-Driven Manufacturing environments.
On their own, each of these Elements would likely improve production flow. Our position is that by working these Elements together, you take a demand-driven leap in overall flow improvement. An episode of the podcast, Demand-Driven Matters, explains this in greater detail – along with data points on actual improvements manufacturers have gained:

Recently, we’ve been hearing from more manufacturers who want to do more with what they have. That is, drive flow to the point that they’ve increased capacity to take on more work – or enter new markets. One client we worked with saw the Demand-Driven method – and its ability to drive flow – as a means to expand one of their business units without dramatically increasing headcount. Another client was able to use this method to free capacity to enter a new market – and doubled revenue in 2.5 years.

In upcoming posts, we’ll review each Element in greater detail – you can also learn more about them through the Demand-Driven Matters podcast. In the meantime, let us know if you’ve worked through any or all of these Elements – and what your results were.
November 5, 2015

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