Integrated Production Planning, Scheduling and Shop Floor Tracking System for High-Mix Low-Volume Manufacturing - A Consortium Approach

Abstract

In Singapore, the Precision Engineering (PE) industry is the backbone of the manufacturing sector; it supports a large number of manufacturing industries such as Electronics, Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology, Aerospace, Oil & Gas and Automotive. From our recent visits to companies in the PE industry, it was observed that given such a dynamic and stochastic manufacturing environment, most of these PE companies are still predominantly using Microsoft Excel as their planning & scheduling tool, shop floor tracking is normally performed manually through paper traveler, and production status is only updated at the end of the day or as and when demanded by customer. The common problems highlighted include inability to provide realistic delivery commitment, machine and manpower resources are not optimally utilized to fulfill customer orders, unacceptable order cycle time and lack of production visibility. Therefore, there is an increasing demand and impending need for a computerized integrated production planning/scheduling and shop floor tracking system. In this paper, a consortium approach for the development of an integrated production planning/scheduling and shop floor tracking system for the High-Mix Low-Volume (HMLV) PE environment is presented. An illustration through the implementation of the proposed system in a PE company is highlighted. With this system, companies would be able to improve their delivery performance through effective handling of ad-hoc customer orders and the ability to react to deviations or unplanned events in production.

Practical order release planning linking enterprise and shop floor tracking systems for High-Mix Low-Volume (HMLV) manufacturing

“…With this approach, the proprietary operational details of each consortium member will not be divulged to other members of the consortium, as the implementation is carried out on a one-to-one basis. To date, fifteen PE companies had confirmed their participation in this consortium [7]. The success story mentioned in this paper is our first implementation and currently we are in the process of helping the fourth PE companies in the consortium.…”

“…In addition, shop floor tracking is normally done manually through paper traveler. Many of these companies are feeling the need for a computerized production planning and shop floor tracking tools to assist them in managing the dynamism of customer demands in the complex environment [7].…”

“…In this paper, the design, development and actual deployment of an effective, adaptable and reconfigurable order release method for the HMLV manufacturing environment is described. This is an ongoing consortium project executed by the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech), which aims at helping the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the Precision Engineering (PE) industry, which is the backbone of the manufacturing sector; as it supports a large number of manufacturing industries, and operating in the HMLV production environment [7]. The order release system controls the release of the pending work orders in such environment, considering the massive product mix and low production volume and the multitude of capacity constraints that have to be optimized and coordinated inorder to fulfil the dynamic changes in the customer requirements.…”