Of the many ways to maintain efficiencies in modern manufacturing, none is perhaps more underutilized than the keeping of accurate inventories. Perhaps, this is due to some ancient notion that inventory simply takes care of itself: Orders get taken, parts get ordered, parts get used in production, product leaves shop—and the cycle starts over anew. Perhaps accurate inventory maintenance is considered unnecessary, that there is little margin loss as a result of obsolescence or overstocking. However, both considerations operate under the same single primary fallacy—that inventory is only an insignificant means to a production end where other factors such as labor and machinery are considered far more important manufacturing elements.
Today, though, it is not enough to say that you have a great grasp on the scheduling and maintenance of men and machine on the shop floor. For, without proper inventory maintenance, no amount of efficiency in scheduling and direct-labor costing will prevent production delays due to something such as a lack of parts. It is for this reason that enterprise resource planning (ERP) software systems have been developed. An intuitive and robust ERP software brings together a wealth of real-time shop floor data that includes the typical tools that keep an accurate accounting of inventory. Inventory control in ERP is designed to manage all inventory-related transactions. For example, using a graphical user interface on the shop floor, you can identify and track information for each standard part within the item master. ERP will also provide real-time visibility into inventoried parts, allowing more accurate inventory management decisions. In building efficiencies, an ERP software system will help in the overall maintenance of inventories by enabling managers to make better inventory decisions—this, as a result of the performing of everyday tasks that before ERP took hours or even days to produce. However, now with the automated functions of ERP, and the access to real-time data, such tasks such as cycle counting take only minutes to generate a detailed material availability report.
The result of a fully integrated ERP software system is the enhancement of communication between all shop functions. This includes communication between shop floor personnel, sales order clerks, and inventory managers. That is to say, an intuitive and integrated ERP software will automatically tend to inventory maintenance through these on-line tools, with on-hand inventory levels being held at minimal volumes that take advantage of just-in-time (JIT) production mandates. In short, the keeping of accurate inventories helps keep obsolescence down, while at the same time producing automated purchasing when needed.
With so much riding on the maintenance of accurate inventories, it is a wonder that more attention is not given to its importance by manufacturers. Indeed, as waste is eliminated through every aspect of the job shop or make to order manufacturer, little is gained if inventories are not properly accounted for with great regularity. ERP software now allows inventory managers the means to, for once, incorporate the production levels taking place in other vital areas of the plant. As the plant speaks with one mind on the production line, inventory accounting then becomes that last piece in the puzzle where gains in efficiencies are made through the total integration of shop floor communication.
http://globalshopsolutions.com/
Dusty Alexander is the President of Global Shop Solutions. Global Shop Solutions is the largest privately held ERP software company in the United States
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By Dusty Alexander
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