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Component Manufacturing dverti$ dverti $ er
Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
July 2020 #12252 Page #44
Adverti$$er
Critical Summertime Repeated Problem Areas Hindering Sales Todd Drummond
Y
ear after year, too many companies suffer needlessly with the same common problems. Even after making new equipment investments and receiving assurances that things will be different, the old issues keep rearing their heads.
! Even with the additional equipment investment, production cannot ramp up to meet the demands. ! The production schedule is far too many weeks out and is unreliable. ! The design department capacity is sorely dependent on more personnel. ! The design department’s schedule is unreliable or non-existing and is frustrating for the sales staff. ! Salespeople are wasting too much time having to contact someone within the company to find status information for every project.
No matter the equipment investment, production cannot keep the new order schedule at a reasonable level, such as two weeks. A few things, in particular, cause these repeated scheduling problems, but most companies are unwilling to seriously address these issues because they do not want to change current methods. The number one reason that too many companies do not have a reliable schedule is they are still using board foot (BF) or sales dollars for units of measurement. Ask any production foreman if they believe BF or sales dollars units are a reliable unit of measure, and every single one will tell you it is not. Every production foreman has to make mental adjustments to all of the orders when using these unreliable units, even though far more reliable units to measure and schedule production exist. For those trying to use sales dollars, can the shop produce the order quicker when the order has a lower margin rate? The answer is “no.” Maybe it is time to update your company’s scheduling units to something far more reliable, and that also can be used for an effective incentive program to enhance the total output. (See also Reliable and accurate man-minutes) Continued next page
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