Managing Automation - June 2008 - (Page 29)

elements and definitions that would be in the new MFG Pro systems deployed at each Laird plant. Though the company wanted enough commonality across its operations to provide global visibility into things like inventory, it did not want to hamstring local plant managers. “It’s very important to make sure you don’t try to over-control,” Rumsey says. “Our manufacturing plants have to be able to plan locally and to manage their demand locally. And we want to give them the tools to do that without making it so bureaucratic that it’s infeasible.” The question was which data elements needed to be standard across Laird’s plants and which did not, Rumsey says. The company spent six months hashing that out. Laird formed an executive steering committee. And, Rumsey says, “We asked, ‘What do you envision being able to correlate across all of our sites at the end of the day?’ ” Laird executives answered that they wanted to be able, in real time, to see all open order data, all sales data, and inventory by product and product lines globally. With that information, Rumsey says, executives at any time could get a snapshot of things like global inventory and demand, which they could use to make more informed decisions about where it made the most sense to source products for different orders. With those guidelines in place, Rumsey’s team decided it wasn’t necessary to force each local plant to throw out its part number scheme. The plants could continue to use existing part numbers, as long as they conformed to the 18-digit constraint imposed by MFG Pro. But those part numbers would have to be unique and fit within a common product and product family hierarchy defined by Laird and maintained in the QAD database. Using the common data definitions, Laird began deploying MFG Pro across its global operations in early 2006. The company set up MFG Pro at nine sites in eight countries in 2006, followed by 13 sites in four more countries in 2007. This year Laird plans to deploy in another 16 sites for a total of 38 sites across 15 countries. As hoped, the common system platform, business process, and data definitions have given Laird executives and line-of-business employees unprecedented visibility into the company’s global operations. They can now see all open customer orders, all order histories and sales histories, all inventory positions and raw materials, and all finished goods and work in process, correlated by product line and family. With that kind of real-time information, Rumsey says, Laird employees are now able to quickly recognize and react to business changes taking place globally. In some cases, operations managers in Europe facing out-of-stock situations have been able to reroute product from Laird plants in Mexico after determining that the action wouldn’t impact customers. With increased global visibility, Laird is also better able to consolidate procurement, resulting in more favorable terms from suppliers. And the company has been able to streamline intra-company orders and give customers better information about product availability. Now that Laird has dramatically improved its visibility into its global operations, the next step will be to improve its understanding of exactly what it costs to produce goods in different parts of the world and ship them to customers, Rumsey says. Rather than looking only at how quickly Laird can get product to customers, executives want to understand total landed costs involved in sourcing from different plants. To do that, Rumsey says, Laird may need to deploy the transportation management module of MFG Pro. Adding visibility into total landed costs is probably a good idea for Laird. The company expects to continue its global expansion. Already, Rumsey says, customers are beginning to push for Laird to set up shop in Vietnam and other ultra-low-cost locations. back in when you have some of the product recycled. So it’s not just an either/or; you can benefit from greening the supply chain today. ments in new systems and technologies, or do we have in place the technologies required to provide that level of global inter-partner visibility? KUKOR: Well, I can tell you from dealing with a commodity-based organization there’s a lot of fear. We’re going to be held in Nor th America to a green supply chain. We’re going to be held to a higher environmental standard than somebody in China. So how am I going to remain competitive? Now if you impose the legislation on me for recycling and things like that, how do I roll that through my supply chain and hold them accountable for this? I think if you’re dealing with commodities — selling 100,000 or 200,000 widgets or lights that can be made in China or wherever — there’s a lot of fear. Is this going to be a global phenomenon or are we just going to overload the small to midsized manufacturers again in the United States, trying to get them to comply? We’ve talked about increasing visibility and monitoring quality. To what extent going forward will these areas of focus require invest- KUKOR: I think what you’re going to see happen here in the next few years is to get away from server-based modes and go more on-demand. [Manufacturers will look for] more visibility through the use of the Internet. It’s an absolute must. I’m noticmanagingautomation.com ing that people are more interested in RELATED ARTICLES: spending on quality, on sourcing, on Creating the One Enterprise quality software packages. They’ll look www.managingautomation.com/integrate at a strategic level of quality, which I Beating the Odds in Global Supply didn’t see five years ago. Only the best www.managingautomation.com/globalsupply of the best companies looked at qualTaking Off the Blindfold ity as a strategic advantage. In today’s www.managingautomation.com/blindfold market, it is a major issue, as one of Strategic Sourcing Takes Vigilance the panelists just said. It’s in the boardwww.managingautomation.com/sourcing rooms and it’s becoming the topic on every conference call that I’m on. ■ COMPANIES MENTIONED: maonline To listen to the full interview, and others in the Roundtable Series, visit www.managingautomation.com/PM roundtableGlobal. QAD Inc. www.managingautomation.com/QAD Symphony Metreo Inc. www.managingautomation.com/Symphony June 2008 29 http://managingautomation.com http://www.managingautomation.com/integrate http://www.managingautomation.com/globalsupply http://www.managingautomation.com/blindfold http://www.managingautomation.com/sourcing http://www.managingautomation.com/QAD http://www.managingautomation.com/PMroundtableGlobal http://www.managingautomation.com/Symphony

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Managing Automation - June 2008

Managing Automation - June 2008 Contents Take 1 SAP Cites Functionality, Cost Structure in Modified On-Demand Product Rollout Dassault Exec Predicts More PLM Consolidation The Blackberry Goes Native with SAP CRM QAD Brings MDM In-House with FullTilt Buy Power Experts Look to End Voltage Sags The Progressive Manufacturers Notes Cover Story: Playing the Globalization Game to Win Special Report Integration Transformation Industries Product Scan Advertiser Index Next

Managing Automation - June 2008

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