Five Steps to Establishing an Effective Manufacturing Control System

I want to discuss two mental models that people might use when thinking about manufacturing management.

One mental model is somewhat traditional in manufacturing.  It is that of a “military maneuver” and you're the general.  You job is to establish command and control so you can apply force to get things done.

Here's another mental model that that I prefer.  It is that of a of a “missile”.  A customer order comes in, you program the missile, you hit the launch button, and that sucker goes out.  The missile is smart enough to do course correction, move around obstacles, it's autonomous, and you can use it to very reliably deliver lead-time-away so that you satisfy customers every time.

Now that's a nicer way of looking at it and that's the way we think about manufacturing management.  You can use your ERP system, training, people, and management approach to establish this control system.  But how exactly do you do that?

There are five areas that you can focus on to establish effective operations:

1. Customer demand management
2. Production planning
3. Production scheduling
4. Effective execution, both on the shop floor and in the procurement supply chain
5. Effective management that sustains the previous four areas.

What we've just described is a comprehensive framework for order fulfillment and doing it reliably and efficiently every time you get a customer order.

It also describes the “90-day” process that we have at Altemir Consulting where we work with companies to look at these five areas.  We apply “judo chops” in each of those five areas.  It's not boiling the ocean.  We make very specific changes to key pressure points in each of these five areas so that, in a short amount of time, you can really maximize the utilization and effectiveness of your systems, data, processes, people, and equipment.

Contact us to see how Altemir Consulting can help achieve your operating performance and profitability objectives.