The story of Preactor at Universal Products Tim Buck Steve Littlewood Contact: SUN Meeting Dec 9 th 2008

Contract manufacturer of Liquid Pharmaceuticals and Toiletries. Shampoos, Shower Gels and Cough Mixtures. Make to order. Customers often supply packaging materials and labels. So it is important to tell our customers 2 things: 1.Delivery dates for the finished goods 2.Dates when the packaging is required 2 processes. Bulk Liquid  Filling Lines. The factory is planned for internal efficiencies and customer satisfaction. The factory plan is made and passed to the purchasing department who are expected to source the materials to match the plan. What do we do at UPL?

Originally we used Excel. This had its limitations. Then we used MS Project, but this had no links to Sage so we were duplicating data entry. And we had one project document for bulk liquid manufacture and one for the filling lines, so it was difficult to see if the overall plan was valid. So we felt that it wasn’t the right tool for the job. It is more suited to engineering projects etc. The purchasing department were really struggling to know when materials were really needed, so they had to keep high buffer stocks. MRP for purchasing could only use the manufacturing lead times from the stock file. The following slides illustrate this problem..... The Problems

MRP says “Raise New PO” here The MRP and Lead Times Problem MC1 MC2 Late WO1 WO2 In the real world the PO is needed here The existing work load shows a bottleneck Mfg Lead Time= 7 days WO1WO2 Order Due 30/1/9 Mfg Lead Time= 14 days Start 23/1/9 Start 9/1/9 New Sales Order with 2 x BOM levels SO Hours Work

So the solution is that from Preactor we update the WO Lines with the realistic planned start dates, and then run a purchasing MRP. The buyers tell production if they can’t achieve the requirements. Yes we look to be bringing stock in earlier and it may end up sat in WIP or in the FG warehouse waiting to be despatched. But there will also be other orders that may be planned to start later than the lead times would suggest, so the purchased stock is more “just in time” than it would be using simple lead times. It all depends on whether our planning policy is to reduce WIP or to satisfy customers. Both would be nice! This process is in fact used to set the initial promise dates to the customer in the first place. Realistic promises based on finite capacity plans maximise the chance of being on time. The MRP and Lead Times Problem

Live demo We heard about Preactor via a meeting of ISTUG! We had a reference site visit to another (happy) user of Preactor with Sage Line 500. We implemented Preactor 5 years ago Decided to go ahead with a standalone Preactor P300 FCS system and bespoke interface to and from Sage. We have a dedicated planner who relies totally on the Preactor system. We do NOT have the Routings and WIP Tracking modules. Process information is stored on the BOM in Sage. (Slides to follow) How Preactor Helped

Works Order Header fields – pulled in from the BOM Process Times and Machines Resource Group Run Rate – Bottles Per Minute

Preactor Benefits Preactor planned dates for Works Orders are updated back to Sage and then the purchasing MRP is driven by realistic dates rather than the manufacturing lead times in a standard Sage system. This results in the confidence to reduce buffer stock levels. The same applies to Works Order Trial Kitting – when looking to see which jobs can be started we are using real planning dates. The company is better able to react more quickly to changes in demand from customers, failures to supply by suppliers, or unexpected events in the factory that result in downtime or the need to re-arrange the plan for any other reasons. A copy of the system can be taken at any time and used to do “What-If” scenarios. For instance to look at the effects of adding or removing a machine or of applying an extra night shift and so on. Forward scheduling can be used to answer the question of “How long can we keep the machines running based on the supply of items from previous operations or works orders?”. The system can predict future lateness of orders in advance, while there is still time to do something about it. More accurate promises can be given for new sales orders. We even publish the latest expected dates onto our customer portal website, direct from Preactor so that the customer can see the latest situation.

Customers can view the latest planned dates via the UPL website. UPL Web

1.Work To Lists for each machine. 2.Capacity Vs Loading reports. 3.Job History – audit of the changes to the planned dates for any job. 4.Target Dates Report – for high priority jobs, set target dates and manage by exception. Examples Reporting

Work To Lists for each machine. Reporting

Capacity Vs Loading report. Reporting Unavailable = Off Shift Therefore for 1 machine on 1 day this adds to 24 hours

Job History. Reporting We can trace how this job has been moved between different planned dates

Target Dates. Reporting We need to track this job because the customer is visiting on the 25 th and we have promised that it will be running then....

We intend use Preactor as a way of monitoring the actual adherence to plan by taking shop floor data into Preactor at regular intervals. We have an Access database system in each of the filling rooms. Every time a pallet is completed we enter the quantity / lot number in order to produce a label. And we are expanding our barcoding systems so that we get more real time data on the completions of liquid from the mixing rooms. This data will be imported into Preactor. So Preactor effectively becomes a graphical production monitoring system because the Gantt chart bars can be partially coloured out to represent progress. Future Developments

Preactor Live Demo Slides: Appendix

Menu System – Data Interface sub menu

Main Scheduling screen Machines Linked WOs – producing bulk liquid and consuming it on the filling lines Red indicates to the planner that this operation needs a “Hot Fill”

Main Scheduling screen – Drill to full Operation details Required Date Preactor actual planned dates, with 6 hours setup needed Process time data. Bulk liquid so the time is Hours Per Batch. For the filling lines it will be Bottles Per Minute

Main Scheduling screen Yellow edging means the job is within it’s Delivery Buffer – so it is in danger of being late This job is planned to end later then it is required, hence the red edging Setup time

Shift Pattern Entry Outlook style – only available in Preactor V10+

Shift Patterns Viewd in the Scheduler (Jobs hidden temporarily) Production day, No Break Efficiency = 100% Off Shift Efficiency = 0%

Work Centres or Resource Groups Group G_MR1/2/4T contains these 3 resources