The 9 greatest Challenges to Scheduling YOUR Machine Shop and Why Most Schedules are Dead on Arrival!
I lately surveyed 1,500 NTMA (National Tooling and Machining Association) machine shop owners about the greatest challenges they face when attempting to schedule their shop. And then I spent countless hours going via the information.
I learned a good deal and I truly felt your discomfort. But by sharing my findings with you, my hope, is that you simply will find out a good deal too and perhaps we can ease some of that discomfort.
The 9 greatest Challenges …
Based on my survey (and from lots of of my customers and those I meet though Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt’s Global marketing and advertising Director) I can say this… you aren’t alone. With all of the responses I received, I could categorize ALL of them into 9 challenges. So let’s go via every category …
1. customers alter their mind
Customers normally want to create adjustments right after they’ve placed their order. They need to alter their quantity, alter the scope, alter the style, cancel, or ask you to give priority to yet another 1 of the jobs.
In addition, clients normally have emergency wants. And major or essential clients generally appear to choose the time when you are booked solid for three weeks to call and request that you simply slip their job in this week to ensure that they are able to meet a commitment to their consumer.
So, we break a setup, we jump via hoops and do what we will need to do to maintain the consumer pleased. But we’re now late on yet another consumer’s job. And now the schedule is out of date.
And from time to time, they do not want to create a alter, but they need to check in with you to ensure your going to finish their job on-time.
And, we hate answering the phone.
2. Vendors aren’t generally reliable
Raw material suppliers, especially for much less prevalent supplies, can extend or vary their lead-times and then still do not generally deliver when promised.
In addition, outside procedure vendors like platers, heat-treaters, welders, plus the like also have a tough time meeting their original commitment. plus the quantity of time they wind up taking varies based on the load on their facility so you cannot even start to predict.
So as soon as 1 of our vendors misses their commitment, our schedule is out of date, and we now might be late. And when it lastly shows up, we uncover ourselves breaking a setup and expediting for the reason that THAT consumer just referred to as.
And, these guys appear to schedule based on who’s screaming the loudest, so we will need to call and scream on a typical basis for any essential jobs. This is not really productive function, but it is needed.
3. Our mix can vary wildly and so our constraint moves
It appears that the nature of a machine shop is that your mix is going to alter, and because of that your constraint (your Herbie) is going to move. And, it is tough to boost a moving target and enhancing everywhere is just plain unaffordable.
Machine shops can range inside the quantity of repeat function they do. plus the much more custom function they do, the much more the mix can alter day-to-day or week-to-week. And from time to time “the mix gods” are very good to us, but from time to time they’re not and we do not ship on-time.
But shops that do a significant quantity of repeat or make to stock function do not have it any simpler — they’re attempting to balance against an unknown and ever changing forecast. And when the forecast is wrong, we will need to break setups and expedite.
4. My employees don’t generally have the correct skill and their discipline is lacking
Machine shops universally appear to lack abilities amongst their employees. specific people today need to run specific jobs. Not everybody can do a setup, or not everybody can do specific setups. I’ve heard some owners refer to their much less skilled labor as button pushers or component changers.
This indicates that the skilled people today generally have a backlog of function though we chase around and uncover some thing the button pushers cannot screw up. And discovering the time to cross train is hard.
And additionally to these skill problems, people today do not generally show up on time or at all. Or they show up, but you wish their attitude would have stayed house…getting buy-in is hard at most effective.
5. My processes aren’t reliable
Even jobs that repeat can have significant differences in set up and run times depending on who’s running it or what machine it runs on. But even if we can get the very same guy plus the very same machine every time, stuff occurs — tools break, fixtures do not function, machines or tools are not calibrated, etc.
And then we win a brand new job, 1 we have not run prior to. And, needless to say, it does not run anything like what we planned or based our pricing on. Stuff occurs.
Our front office or pre-manufacturing processes aren’t a lot much better. This indicates that a number of the time we do not generally have what we will need to run the job — the raw material, the style, the order into the program, the programming carried out, etc.
And when stuff occurs (or much more properly when variability happens) we’re in jeopardy of delivering late, which causes us to expedite, which indicates our schedule is out of date.
6. Machines break down
Of course, on occasion, machines break down. it is hard to schedule maintenance when you are generally behind schedule. And it appears to take place when we’re slammed. And then our schedule is out of date, we’re in jeopardy of delivering later, and so we once more expedite. (We’re acquiring fairly very good at this fire fighting and expediting.)
7. top quality isn’t near perfect
Quality is not generally best. from time to time we struggle to create it correct the initial time or do not catch a mistake until further processing has been carried out. Regardless of whether or not we invest time performing rework because of an unpredictable downstream activity or an unsuccessful tool tryout the result is we’re in jeopardy of missing our due date, which causes us to expedite, and now the schedule is out of date.
8. Our information isn’t readily out there nor accurate nor communicated
It is hard to predict the load on our facility relative to our capacity — our reports and existing software program do not support or they’re much more trouble than they’re worth. Our estimates for set-up and job run times aren’t accurate. This combined with all of the items above make it hard to present due dates that we can hit 99+ on-time performance and lessen lead-times. But nevertheless, we do attempt to boost. The challenge is that we focus on enhancing 1 or a couple of the above challenges and we diminish them some — but we do not have any substantial impact on our on-time delivery performance or decreasing our lead-times.
What if we had a Paradise Plant?
If we have properly identified all of the significant causes for the difficulty in managing production, then it indicates that if we could address every 1 that the shop could be reasonably simple to manage. The schedule would not alter, we would not will need to expedite, and we might be on-time, all of the time.
Do you agree that, if:
1. customers by no means alter their mind,
2. and vendors generally supply whatever we ask for, on time,
3. and our mix stayed constant and our constraint did not move,
4. and people today are excellently trained and disciplined,
5. and all processes are dependable,
6. and machines by no means break down,
7. and top quality is superb,
8. and information is readily out there, accurate, and communicated,
9. and communication is very good,
Then:
” Managing production could be a piece of cake?
This appears logical. So I tried it. Now, I could not uncover a actual Paradise Plant, but I did uncover a simulated 1. And I gave the simulator to some really very good schedulers. The simulator didn’t believe for them, it didn’t make any decisions, it only executed the decisions they created.
The simulator presents a reasonably uncomplicated operation — considerably fewer resources and items than what you need to manage inside your actual operation. And there is certainly NO variability or skill problems. all the challenges listed above are gone.
We went over how the simulator works – the best way to order material, the best way to set up a machine, what the orders are, the precise routing’s for every item, specifically how lengthy every procedure is, etc.
The simulator might be frozen plus the participants had as a lot time as they wanted to carefully strategy and execute. They also did a short trial to ensure that they weren’t hindered by the software program. This must be a piece of cake correct?
What Happened in Paradise?
We asked every participate how they did and what their outcomes had been. NONE of the participants shipped all their orders — meaning they had been NOT 100% on-time. And it wasn’t for the reason that of lack of capacity.
In addition, they reported that their nicely planned, detailed schedule was only very good for about the initial 2 days. right after that they had been running by the seat of their pants creating a good deal needless to say corrections.
How can it be that when all of the challenges are removed, we’re still left with the very same three undesirable effects /problems?
1. Not all clients’ orders are shipped on time.
2. Original plans have a really limited life or are dead on arrival.
3. you will discover a good deal needless to say corrections and expediting
This indicates that the list of challenges we collected aren’t THE significant trigger of the above 3 items for the reason that they occurred even right after we removed these challenges. So it have to be that we have not but identified the accurate trigger for these negative effects.
SUMMARY
So a much better ERP, clients who do not alter their mind, greater skilled labor, a constant constraint, a constant mix, and so on wouldn’t totally solve the three challenges.
But working on 1 or a number of of these challenges is ordinarily what we do. We hire a Lean consultant to support lessen our set-ups or to much better organize our function space — and we do lessen our set-up time and we’re much better organized, but did we substantially boost our DDP, lessen the number of times we will need to break setups or lessen our lead-times? The answer is ordinarily no, not substantially.
Are you tired of spending dollars on consultants, programs, and software program that do not substantially boost what matters? I know I was, that is why we developed the Velocity Scheduling program. (more on that later)
In my next release of material, I need to share with you how we had been all taught to style and run a machine shop. And how by performing specifically what we had been taught (conventional wisdom) WE make a scenario where the 9 challenges will live and prosper.
Let me say that once more – if we do what everybody does and run our shop specifically how we had been taught, we’re going to be dealing with these challenges.
But, there is certainly hope …
Those very same schedulers (who did the Paradise Plant simulation) had been taught the Velocity Scheduling program. And this time they completed all of the orders on time. And right after that, they went back to their actual life plants and applied what they learned to their a lot much more complicated environment.
Their outcomes? Substantially much better DDP, substantially decreased lead-times (velocity via their shop increased) and a lot simpler scheduling with a lot much less chaos.
But prior to we jump to the answer, let’s ensure we fully grasp why we do issues the way we do them currently. We also will need to fully grasp why these conventional actions are wrong – otherwise we may possibly slip back.
So now, I’m working on a brand new video for you. I’m going to explain what we had been taught to do and why, and how by following conventional wisdom, we wind up with the challenges outlined in this unique report. And much more importantly, we wind up with a lot much less than best DDP, longer lead-times than we’d like, and a lot much more chaos (expediting, fire fighting, and re-scheduling).
So search for my release of this video and though you are waiting, please leave me comments about this unique report. I need to hear from you!!
To leave your comments return to the weblog where you downloaded the unique report: http://velocityschedulingsystem.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/free-special-report-for-machine-shop-owners/
Sincerely,
“Dr Lisa” Lang
http://www.VelocitySchedulingSystem.com
