Tag: production planning

  • Closing the Visibility Gap in Complex Production Environments

    Closing the Visibility Gap in Complex Production Environments

    The Transparency Challenge in Complex Manufacturing

    In many complex manufacturing environments, such as aerospace, defense, or heavy equipment manufacturing, a single production order can encompass dozens or even hundreds of interdependent work orders. Unforeseen issues, such as late or short material deliveries, rework, unplanned equipment downtime, and engineering change orders, can introduce delays deep in a sub-assembly that ripple through the entire build.  

    When delivery commitments slip, manufacturers often face contract penalties, costly expediting, and damage to customer trust and brand reputation. In sectors like defense or critical infrastructure, scheduling slips can pose national security or mission-readiness risks. Because traditional ERP systems provide only fragmented, static views of complex, multi-level orders, emerging risks stay buried. Too often, schedule problems come to light only after commitments are already missed and firefighting has begun. 

    Equally challenging, without the right tools, resolving a delay and understanding its true impact on the production schedule and final delivery often means jumping between multiple screens, exporting data to spreadsheets, or walking the shop floor to investigate each issue by hand—a time-consuming, error-prone process that simply doesn’t scale as order volumes, product complexity, and customer expectations continue to rise. 

    Production plan end to end visibility

    What’s New in SyncManufacturing® Production Plan Version 8?

    Production Plan, a core feature of the SyncManufacturing Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) system, addresses the challenge by giving planners a clear, visual overview of an order’s entire build process, from top-level demand through every related work order, routing step, and required component in a single, navigable view. It exposes relationships and dependencies between work orders, highlights the critical path, and surfaces input and material readiness at each step so teams can quickly spot emerging bottlenecks, understand what’s driving potential lateness, and take targeted action before small disruptions turn into missed delivery commitments. 

    In Version 8, Production Plan has been redesigned to deliver faster performance, clearer visuals, and better support for today’s complex, multi-level order structures. For manufacturers already using SyncManufacturing, here’s a quick rundown of the changes you’ll see in the Production Plan interface: 

    • Completely redesigned screen: The new Production Plan screen in SyncManufacturing Version 8 was rebuilt to make it easier to view complex order structures in a single, responsive interface.  
    • Networks in the main view: Networked orders that were previously visualized in a separate screen are now integrated into the standard Production Plan view, so users can see an individual order and its network context together. 
    • Order and Operation Precedence support: Production Plan now incorporates the latest modeling options, including order-level and operation-level precedence, so schedule-impacting dependencies are visible directly in the plan. 
    • Inputs drawer: Information on the inputs to operations (such as material availability and shortages) is now accessible in a bottom drawer, keeping the primary view clean while still providing instant access to critical details. 
    • Performance and usability improvements: The updated design is engineered to handle very complex, multi-level orders with greater efficiency and responsiveness.
    Production plan in SyncManufacturing showing precedences and the entire build

    Ready to Close the Visibility Gap in Your Shop?

    If you manage complex, interdependent production orders, you know how difficult it can be to get a clear picture of status, risks, and dependencies from traditional ERP or scheduling tools. With SyncManufacturing Production Plan, your team can work from a single, always-current view of every order, seeing exactly what’s on track, what’s at risk, and what actions need to be taken to protect customer commitments. 

    Ready to experience what working with a more transparent and predictable production schedule feels like? Contact Synchrono to schedule a SyncManufacturing Version 8 demo and see Production Plan in action. 

    Request a Demo
  • It’s Time: Manufacturers Need to Cut Ties with MRP and Spreadsheets

    It’s Time: Manufacturers Need to Cut Ties with MRP and Spreadsheets

    Update your manufacturing tools

    A few years ago, Aberdeen Group did a study that showed that 63% of “best in class” manufacturers still used spreadsheets for planning. With percentages this high, it’s probably safe to say that there is a lack of trust in planning tools like ERP and MRP even in the best-run companies.

    Of course, spreadsheets come with their own set of issues. You may have a certain amount of confidence in the spreadsheets you’ve created, but what about those from your colleagues? Do you know what formulas they use to arrive at their conclusions? Where did they get their data? If the creator of the spreadsheet goes on vacation or worse – leaves the company – how quickly could a new planner take over their role using the existing planning tools and methodologies?Old manufacturing production tools

    Spreadsheets also contain computational and data errors. Forbes published an article quoting “various studies” that put the rate of significant errors at 88%. Though no specific studies were named, you probably don’t need that extra level of validation. You know the spreadsheets you use have errors in them. Otherwise, why would you still be having such a hard time synchronizing inventory and production to demand?

    The Problem Lies in the Basis of the Plan

    Actually, spreadsheets are pretty powerful tools, even with the occasional error that creeps in. Likewise, MRP and ERP usually do exactly what they are supposed to do. They create time-phased material requirements and production plans based on the parameters entered into the system: forecasts, reorder points, capacity and so on. The calculations are so basic that even the most rudimentary software applications get them right.

    The problem lies in the basis for the plans themselves. At the root of all production and material requirements plans lies the forecast, often generated by the sales or marketing department. Even when calculations are based on an analysis of historical data, it’s still a forecast. And, as we are all painfully aware, there is no such thing as an “accurate forecast.”

    Not trusting what Forecast-based production planning problemsthey’ve been handed, inventory and production planners use spreadsheets to massage the forecast data before it is entered into the system. Some of these comments might sound familiar:

    “We always see a bump in demand for these items in June, so we need to increase production now.”

     “I know sales has a quota on this new product, but I think they’re being overly optimistic. If we cut the requirements by about 10%, we can deal with it later if they actually manage to reach their quota.”

     “I read in the news that there may be shortages of this material. Let’s order extra now so we can stay ahead of the problem.”

    At the end of the day, the forecast is still a forecast, even with the wisdom of inventory and production planners added in. Unfortunately, the new forecast may not represent reality any better than the original forecast received from sales, and ERP and MRP have no choice but to translate those erroneous assumptions into equally flawed material requirements and production plans. In turn, these flawed plans translate into all sorts of issues: expediting orders, late nights, increased overtime, missed deadlines, angry salespeople, angrier customers, inflated inventory levels, blown budgets, tense meetings in the executive conference room and bland food diets to prevent your indigestion from turning into a full-blown ulcer.

    Grounding Planning in Reality

    Since there is no such thing as a crystal ball that shows future demand, manufacturers who want to break free from this vicious cycle need to replace forecast-based planning with reality-based planning. In short, ditch ERP, MRP and spreadsheets (at least for replenishment and production planning) once and for all.

    The only way to do that is to synchronize production and material requirements to actual demand and supply as well as what is happening on the factory floor. It’s called Demand-Driven Manufacturing, and here’s a quick definition:

    Demand–Driven Manufacturing is a method of manufacturing where production is based on actual customer orders (demand) rather than a forecast. This process is accelerated by technology that automates, digitizes data and connects every function within the demand-driven organization and to every layer of the supply chain.

     

    Demand driven manufacturing tools

    We created an entire platform called the Synchrono® Demand-Driven Manufacturing Platform that sits on top of your current ERP system and synchronizes all elements of production to demand and supply. There is no need to rip out your current ERP or MRP applications; our tools use actual customer demand, supply status and the reality of the factory floor to synchronize production. The methods used, such as eKanban, Lean Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints, are no doubt familiar to you.

    If this is the first time you’ve taken a close look at Demand-Driven Manufacturing, we have several resources which can help you build a solid foundation for discussions with others in your organization:

    White paper: The Next Generation of Planning and Scheduling Solutions

    White paper: How Technology Will Connect Your Enterprise and Create the Demand-Driven Manufacturing Factory of the Future – Today

    White paper: Why Become More Demand-Driven? Responding to Customer Needs

    We also produce a YouTube channel where you can access several educational podcasts and videos that explain some of these concepts in more depth.

    As always, if you have questions, please add them in the comments below, or reach out to us directly. We would love to hear from you!

     

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