Benefit Your Bottom Line: Inventory Management
In the third installment of the Benefit Your Bottom Line post series, we’re exploring a Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) integration for inventory management. Depending on where you work, the words “Manufacturing Execution Systems” can have many different meanings. MES might bring to mind an Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) tracking system, or an integration with your Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS) for better in-process inventory visibility. MES can even be a catch all term for a full manufacturing process and business system integration.
Simplifying Manufacturing Execution System Deployments
At Corso Systems, we’ve learned that it’s best to first approach an MES integration project with a small scope of work. We’ll also use this strategy to learn and document the moving pieces of your operation. We’ll find where all of your data lives, then digitize and integrate the various data sources. Next, we can build tools for your team, so they can manage and utilize the MES functionality. Most importantly, our approach will help instill the cultural values in your team to support your MES endeavors.
MES and automation don’t need to be scary—and they don’t have to take away jobs.
In most cases, we’ve found that the same people who were initially reluctant to adopt MES systems become the biggest champions of them once they experience the every day benefits. Instilling the cultural mindset to support technological changes is a key piece of the puzzle.
As always if you want a deeper dive into MES systems as a whole please check out our Manufacturing Execution Systems Guide.
We Chose Three integration Scenarios in Our Benefit Your Bottom Line Series Based on These Factors:
The data already exists with your process, so you don’t need to build a new business process to use the tools
The integration will benefit your internal users or teams, while also providing a customer-focused benefit
Everything can be tracked in software, so you don’t need to install equipment or experience downtime
With those criteria in place, let’s dive into the third integration example you can do right now to benefit your bottom line with a Manufacturing Execution System! (Did you miss the two previous posts in this series? Start here with our post about Schedule Optimization or Track and Trace.)
Leverage Inventory Management Tools to Reduce Costs
Warehouse Inventory Information Already Exists
For any manufacturing company, information about on hand inventory and/or raw material inventory will usually be available. You are already tracking what you have produced and what you have on hand for your next production runs. If that’s the case, then this data is easy for us to integrate with your overall process information systems.
If you are using any ERP system, this information will usually exist there. It’s also likely accessible for your process information systems, and your customer service teams may already be using it.
Because this data already exists, Inventory Management is a perfect use case for the Benefit Your Bottom Line approach to operating your company. With this information, we can improve customer service operations, optimize production scheduling, and manage on hand inventory to reduce overall costs and increase efficiency.
Three MES User Groups
Customer Service Team
From an MES Perspective, the first major user of an inventory management system is your customer service team. Inventory management systems allow your customer service team to work with customers to determine when their products are ready to ship out, when they are in production, and if there are any issues when meeting customer demand.
Integrating your inventory management system with production systems allows customer service to have real-time visibility into your plant floor operations. This will provide the information they need to be on top of customer inquiries and stay ahead of any delivery expectation difficulties.
Warehouse Team
Your warehousing team will also use an integrated inventory management system. Using MES to track real time production requirements for raw materials and finished goods as they come off the line can also integrate inventory management with your Warehouse Management System (WMS).
We commonly use MES functionality in conjunction with warehouse management systems to give warehouse staff real time pick lists for what the production line needs. This same system can also alert your staff to know when materials that need to be stored in the warehouse are coming off the line.
Raw materials in the warehouse will also be used to feed production line needs. If you have raw material subject to lab testing or other inspection before it is used on the line, the MES system will flag the materials needed for production, ensuring only usable raw materials are sent to the plant floor.
Operations
Tracking real time production will also help operations manage shipping and receiving, quality testing, and any other operational requirements of your goods as they are produced. This will give your company an overall view into your operation from raw materials through finished products—while tracking every material at every step along the way.
Customer Service Now Has Real time Data to Share
By using inventory management along with your MES system, customer service can alert customers of any issues in meeting their order timelines.
You can also directly expose relevant data to your customers for self service order tracking, all without needing to distract your team’s attention from production.
Customer service can also use the inventory management system and the MES functionality to better forecast demand, and meet orders with inventory that may already be in the warehouse. This will help you improve customer satisfaction, overall production efficiency, and reduce costs by better tracking inventory across your entire operation.
Wrapping Up
We hope this post has helped illustrate the value of Manufacturing Execution Systems in your facility. Be sure to read the other entries in our MES: Benefit Your Bottom Line series.
Astute readers will notice that we highlight three users in each post, and that two are always Customer Service and Operations. The power of Manufacturing Execution Systems lies in integrating different systems to give everyone in your company a thorough and detailed view of your operation in real-time. While the department where the integration is focused will obviously benefit, there will always be at lest some additional operational value. If there is operational value, then there will almost always be customer facing value you can extract too. Your customer service team will benefit from the power of these integrations with real-time information to keep customers informed.
It’s very likely that even more of your team will benefit from a Manufacturing Execution System, our posts in this series are describing a minimum of three examples. The benefits are almost unlimited!
If you have any questions about how to implement these integrations, or you would like to see how we have helped companies use to optimize their operations with Manufacturing Execution Systems, please reach out and let us know!
Are you ready to benefit your bottom line today? Schedule a meeting with Cody Johnson in sales.
