Planning and Execution

Overview

Planning and Execution are two very important parts of any manufacturing company or distributor.  Planning is the fundamental understanding of demand.  In order to plan manufacturing you must first fundamentally understand demand.  For many companies demand means many things.  Demand for most company’s lies in the hands of Sales through a Sales Forecast.  Unfortunately a forecast is still a guess and usually is not very accurate.  Additionally, sales forecast are often done at the product family level versus the SKU level.  This on its own creates issues.

OperationsRx has developed a very structured analytical process that enables companies to understand demand.  Once this is achieved then the “Future State Planning Process” is defined, developed, and implemented and planning becomes in-sync with demand.  This positions the business to be very efficient in “Executing” the plan to meet customer schedules with high levels of Fill Rates, Minimum Levels of Inventory, and Maximize Productivity through the footprint.  A key tenet of planning is, “how you plan it determines how productive your plants are”.

Approach

OperationsRx has developed a comprehensive approach to Planning and Execution.  The framework of our approach is divided into three phases (Analysis, Design, Implement) supported by proven project management methodologies.  Additionally, the approach consists of proven methodologies that will accelerate the process transformation.

1. Analyze

2. Design

3. Implement

Planning

Detailed analysis of Current State enables the team(s) to develop the Future State Planning process.  This varies depending on the type of business and the customer expectations.  The Future State Design is mathematically determined to maximize fill rates, minimize inventory investment and maximize productivity and performance in the plants and/or distribution centers.

There are a host of OperationsRx Tools (CloudAnalytics) that are implemented along the way that assist with analytics, design, and daily execution.  The tools are built on data from the existing systems and are live and refreshed daily.  Once the future state is defined then the team focuses on implementing the solution in the clients ERP system as this becomes important to daily execution.  While the OperationsRx Toolset is capable of running the business our consultants stress the importance of executing through the ERP as it tied to the financials, labor, inventory, manufacturing, etc.