SCM Software for Real World Manufacturing: A Case for Mission Critical Use
Ashfaque Ahmed - July 24, 2004

Introduction

As any experienced production or operations manager will tell you, there is real challenge in manufacturing execution processes and that production planning and scheduling does not help. Everyday the manager comes across machines breaking down, bottlenecks in the production lines, human resource problems, wastage of time in machine changeovers, impossible product delivery deadlines, variable raw material quality, raw material unavailability etc. The list of problems for this the manager is endless. And for the most part the manager is right. No matter how much pain you take in making a plan or schedule to care for all kinds of problems , executing this plan will always be difficult. And so if you compare the planning data with the execution data, there is going to be a lot of variance. In this light, it will be very useful for this helpless man, if a software system can take some of the pain away...