North America's largest metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing event heads to Orange County Convention Center in October 2024. FABTECH provides a convenient "one stop shop" venue where you can meet with world-class suppliers, see the latest industry products and developments, and find the tools to improve productivity, increase profits and discover new solutions to all of your metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing needs.
North America's Largest Metal Forming, Fabricating, Welding and Finishing Event
How the Right ERP Configuration Delivers Traceability in Manufacturing
By Jeffrey Sawka, MRP Software Consultant at AIM Computer Solutions Inc. on on
Manufacturers and processors continue to face challenges with trace-ability. They need to trace parts at the material, work center and operator level while also minimizing production container and hi lo movement. If a quality problem occurs, enterprises must have the means of tracing back through the manufacturing process to the origin of the raw material.
An Analogy
I like the analogy of making baked goods. If I’m making cakes (which I love, by the way, chocolate especially) and each cake requires one stick of butter, trace-ability is easy as…(should I say it)…pie! But what if my cake requires 2/3 of a stick of butter? My first cake gets 2/3 of a stick of butter from the first stick, leaving 1/3 stick left over. My second cake will use the 1/3 stick from the first stick and then another 1/3 stick from the second stick of butter.
When I sell my cakes by the slice, how do I trace where the butter came from?
Or take parts made from coils of steel when a manufacturer is doing a combined lot of raw materials going into a manufactured lot. For example, we might have a bin of 300 steel parts, and 200 come out of one coil of steel, and we still need 100 parts from another coil of steel to add to that bin to move it forward. The trace-ability gets even harder when I manufacture in sizes of 300 but pack and ship in containers of 50.
How do I assign trace-ability of the 50s to that manufactured bin of 300?
That’s where properly configured ERP software comes in.
It’s All About the Configuration
Many manufacturers find it difficult to make the type of transaction I just described and record it properly – trace-ability sometimes goes out the window. When every third lot comes from a mixed lot of raw materials and systems aren’t configured to recognize them as such, trace-ability fails.
The best practice for trace-ability is to configure ERP software to capture the transaction and to do so as simply as possible so that the operator isn’t even aware that it’s happening. That’s when you’ll get the trace-ability you want – capturing the transaction within a difficult environment while making it easy on the operator.
Some ERP solutions can do this if they are properly configured. It’s more than a matter of a function or module – it’s about how the system is configured to achieve 100% traceability.
Limiting Container Size Changes/Hi Lo Movements
Another way to achieve improved trace-ability is to limit container size changes and avoid extra hi lo movements of containers. It’s challenging space-wise and cost-wise to make sure I have the same sized container throughout my production process. It means extra material handling, more space requirements, and significant costs.
Think about lot control from a different perspective, that is, to configure lot control to minimize container movement to gain perfect trace-ability.
When the ERP software is properly configured, it meets the end goal of trace-ability rather than disrupting the shop floor process.
This is a just a slice of the presentation I’ll be giving at FABTECH on material handling, trace-ability and ERP configuration.
Hear more from Jeffrey during FABTECH session “How to Keep Full Traceability of Parts (Material, Workcenter and Operator) While Minimizing Hi Lo Moves (Container Movement)”.
North America's largest metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing event heads to Orange County Convention Center in October 2024. FABTECH provides a convenient "one stop shop" venue where you can meet with world-class suppliers, see the latest industry products and developments, and find the tools to improve productivity, increase profits and discover new solutions to all of your metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing needs.
