Order Fulfilment
Order fulfilment is a point of critical interaction with a customer. Timely fulfilment is the one of the key deliverables to customer satisfaction and ultimately customer retention. In a production environment with many hundreds if not thousands of SKU’s and general pressure on suppliers and customers to hold minimal stocks, timely delivery in a dynamic market place can be a challenge.
Communication of factors affecting production between departments in a company are often not structured and rely on individuals raising issues such as lack of inventory, maintenance , availability of labour etc. In a similar way an individual’s knowledge often has the greatest influence on a production plan. The ability to plan effectively is severely limited should that individual not be available.
The sheer volume of variables required to produce and manage an effective plan to point of delivery can place a burden on resources. Reworking of that plan to meet changing demands can be limited to reactive needs because of this. This can result in a plan that is inflexible and not in sync with the dynamic demands of the business.
The plan may be shifted to meet an urgent need, such as avoiding a late penalty from a customer or lack of availability of a component part, but the consequential effect to other deliveries and departments within the company is rarely visible, is often overlooked and may actually be more costly in the longer term to the business than the penalty. Its Management of the supply chain can be a labour intensive task that often results in inefficiencies due to too little margin allowed for varying supply and demand or over allowance resulting in poor resource utilisation.
Either of these situations can have a dramatic effect on profitability and customer satisfaction.
EmsPT has worked with key stakeholders in a number of businesses to provide inventory, planning and scheduling tools that link the plant floor to all areas of the business giving greater visibility of and input to the planning process. With an automated system it is possible to change the production plan on the fly and consider “what if” scenarios allowing key business decisions to be made based on real time information. This makes dynamic planning more efficient, ensuring the best possible delivery schedule and advance notification of issues affecting on time delivery in full.
When you produce a production plan, would it help if that plan was built automatically, based on real time demand and availability criteria from all areas of your business and could be reproduced at the click of a button to meet changes in customer demand and availability of resources? This could help to achieve a more efficient production plan, reducing costs and increasing resource utilisation, on time delivery, profitability and customer satisfaction.
In addition, when you have an issue affecting production, would it help if you were able to give a supplier advance warning of delay to delivery and give a firm amended date based on real time information, minimising the consequential effect to other deliveries, reducing costs and maintaining customer satisfaction?